Hasta La Ideas

While the magazine industry goes through their own difficulties, you’d assume there would be checks and double-checks along the way to make sure there weren’t any potential embarrassing missteps, particularly not with your very first issue. But so it is with Condé Nast UK‘s recent launch of Love, which features on its cover a nude Beth Ditto, the lead singer of the band The Gossip. Certainly, it’s racy and daring, but it’s also been done before, back in 2007 by the popular music magazine, NME. While some are simply ignoring the similarities and appreciating the new glossy, particularly for the design work thereon/in, others are crying foul:

Jeremy Leslie, executive creative director of publisher John Brown, says, ‘Ditto had her moment a couple of years ago and, given the NME did it already, I can’t believe that, in the closed world of fashion, Condé Nast didn’t realise. It’s a strange faux pas to make on your launch.’

Graphic and print designer Mike Dempsey, founder of Studio Dempsey and Master of the Royal Designers for Industry, says, ‘The Love cover smacks of desperation in an already overcrowded magazine world. If this is how they intend to carry on, I give it six issues.’

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media