When I lived in Portland, I lived by The Portland Mercury and Willamette Week. I was running a blog on free and cheap things do to in Portland (Porltandia of the Free) and I spent a lot of time scouring theses magazines looking for events. When I moved to Eugene, I kept a lot of the old issues partly for sentimental reasons and partly because of the awesome covers.
Both of these magazines are well-known for their covers, but they have very different approaches to the style of these covers. I often mix the two magazines up. One magazine has better coverage of music events and the other of community events, but I can never remember which is which. What I can tell you is that while the Willamette Week’s cover always matches their content (main article), the Portland Mercury’s cover is all over the place. Let me show you what I mean.
Here is one of my favorite covers for the Willamette Week’s in August of 2012. The article was “When Stacks Attack” about the cost debate for the Multnomah County Library. The cover is a great piece of art but also very related to the topic of the article.
Here are some covers for The Portland Mercury. These covers not only have nothing to do with the main article, but they’re also confusing (and/or terrifying). I often spent a lot of time thinking about why The Portland Mercury picked these images. I believe that their goal is just to showcase local artists, but I also feel this sends a mixed message. The cover of these magazines are their main branding technique. And while I always read The Portland Mercury, I sometimes felt uncomfortable picking one up because of the cover. However…
This is one of my favorite covers of all time! It makes me laugh every time I see it. I loved it so much, I showed my friends back in California. Talk about spreading your brand through word of mouth. But also…
The Willamette Week sometimes also sent mixed messages. While the image did match the content for this cover, in order to hide the graphic content on the bottom, they put a giant add for Cirque Du Soleil over the it. Kind of an ironic choice. Stop being broke! Buy Cirque Du Soleil tickets! Either way, both magazines need to be aware of what messages they’re sending because it has a large affect on their brand.
