AD Covers

The covers of any magazine are the face by which it is judged. They express the growing pains, mood swings and love pangs of the magazine, its editors and publishers.



Unlike the more mainstream magazines that vie for your attention on the newsagents’ racks, invading your vistas with their pornographic wallpaper, architectural magazines are predominantly subscription based. This means that their covers can be more artistically self-indulgent. Like most trade magazines of the time, Architectural Design sported an advert on its cover until July 1952, when it switched to a greyscale photograph on a plain colour. Theo Crosby became technical editor in 1953 and designed beautiful abstract covers, sometimes including the odd word to describe the theme du jour – “houses”, “roofs”, “Sheffield” – but rarely featuring photography or even buildings. March 1961 saw Mies dominate the cover with a side-lit white close-up, cigarless profile on a black background, the first time an architectural hero became the face of the magazine. This was, however, 46 years after James Quirk essentially started the modern celebrity phenomenon by putting movie stars on the cover of Photoplay.




In May 1968 “Architectural Design” became simply “AD”. Adrian George redesigned the logo that first appeared in June 1970, over two androids apparently having sex, ‘inspired by Expo ’70 images’. This icon, which somehow always reminds me of one R2-D2 chasing another, became the iconic AD logo for the next 30 years. February 1972’s cover consists entirely of Peter Murray’s human scale version, built in driftwood in San Francisco. During the “book business model” of the ‘70s, where the magazine almost completely eschewed advertising, the covers became outlandish and featured Cedric Price, Archigram, Foster Associates, Buckminster Fuller, Royston Landau, Alvin Boyarsky, The Smithsons, Aldo van Eyck and some attractive ones too. But its “little magazine” days were numbered and in 1976, Andreas Papadakis started turning it into a glossy PoMo Decon marketing machine.





© The Sesquipedalist, MMIIX
Appeared in the Architects' Journal 30.10.08