TAKEAWAY: Behind the scenes in the makings of the New York Magazine cover with Michael Douglas: more than just a creative moment
Last week we were mesmerized with the New York Magazine cover of Michael Douglas as he promotes his new made-for-TV biopic about flamboyantly famous pianist Liberace.
We were not the only ones, since you could see that cover, with portrait of Douglas, and just a touch of make up over one of his eyes, on Twitter, Facebook and anyplace else you looked.
This New York Times piece relates the behind the scenes in the makings of that cover. The Times interviewed Jody Quon, director of photography, and design director, Thomas Alberty.
This quote caught our eye as much as the Michael Douglas cover itself:
We wanted only to hint at Michael-meets-Liberace, since a little goes a long way. Martin Schoeller, the photographer, loved our concept, agreed with the level of subtlety that we thought made sense. Martin’s unique portrait lighting and graphic sensibility made for a terrific combination of reality meets fantasy/artifice.
Notice the word “hint” as well as the phrase “a little goes a long way”.
That is, indeed, what made this cover so powerful, the less is best, focus on the one concept that tells the story at a glance (which is splendidly shown here). I know that if I were teaching a design class right now, this would be an example I would want to make sure the students dissected carefully.
It is obvious that this very creative cover involved that split second creative moment, the so called “blink”, but also the ability of the team to focus and to plan, while allowing for the natural evolution of the process to guide them—-in this case, seeing how the photo shoot advanced their idea.
As it always happens, when we look at this cover we get the essence of the story in two seconds, and we feel that this must have been so easy to execute.
Tell the New York Magazine team that!
Covering Michael Douglas
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/covering-michael-douglas/
