How do you talk to first-year Queen's students about sexual harassment? With aliens, of course.

Terence Dickinson, Tracy Read, Susan Dickinson and I created a new book for Firefly Books. I love these guys, and it was a pleasure to work with them on this project. Thanks so much to the folks at Firefly for giving us the freedom to structure the book as we did and to pick our favourite photos from the thousands of exceptional images that the Hubble Space Telescope has produced over its lifetime.

One of the most creative partnerships I’ve had has been with the folk-pop duo Kris and Dee, who have pushed me not only to design their albums and packaging but to do promotional photography, direct music videos and to finally get back to illustration (with a little kicking and screaming from me). 

Their most recent album, the fantastic Browse Line, features rustic artwork by me throughout the packaging, promotion and merchandise. I’m honoured to have this work appear on such an amazing album. Have a listen, buy some merch, and support these incredible musicians! Visit: krisanddee.com

Canadian Wilderness/Toute Nature is the magazine of CPAWS (Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society). I’ve had the good fortune to work with this amazing group for a few years as the designer of their member magazine, and the heart and soul they put into education and advocacy for our land and water is inspiring. Please visit their site or attend one of their talks—I’m sure you’ll be inspired as well.

https://cpaws.org

Congratulations to my friend Pamela Cross, who has spent decades fighting for changes in the way our legal system works with women who are victims of violence. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Attorney General’s Victim Services Award of Distinction. In 2019, Pamela received the Lara Legge Award from the Law Society of Ontario as well as the Guthrie Award from the Law Foundation of Ontario. I’m proud to say I was able to participate in the groundbreaking work she does with Luke’s Place, an Oshawa, Ontario-based centre devoted “to improving the safety and experience of abused women and their children as they proceed through the family law process.” I designed a workbook titled Family Court and Beyond as well as an organizer that helps women navigate family law and court. Find out more here: lukesplace.ca

When I attended MagNet 2019 in Toronto this spring, a session with the Reader’s Digest art director, John Montgomery, finally helped me understand a trend in cover design that had been nagging at me: Why is everyone running tiny cover lines? I understand the appeal of a strong image—that’s been my calling card since I started designing award-winning covers for Equinox at the start of my career. I understand running the main cover line as big as possible, keeping in mind the hierarchy of information. But I’ve always felt that secondary and tertiary lines needed to be seen from a certain distance to give a magazine as much of a chance of grabbing that fleeting attention from a newsstand viewer. 

SkyNews is a great newsstand example. As a niche magazine and one without the money to spend on prime newsstand real estate (racks at the cash register, front of the shelves in the magazine areas), we are routinely placed low or high and at the back. Why wouldn’t we have bigger secondary cover lines in the areas where we peek through the stacks?

The answer? It all comes down to online representation of the cover, whether on a magazine’s site, social media or through digital magazine sellers. The cover icons are miniscule, so there’s really no point in having mid-sized headlines when all a potential online buyer will see is the cover artwork, the masthead and the main sell line. Thank you, John! 

On August 21, 2017, North America experienced a total solar eclipse, the first eclipse since 1979 that was visible from the contiguous United States. At SkyNews, we do our best to provide news and practical information based on sky events that coincide with our bimonthly publishing schedule. 

It’s not a perfect system: Our July/Aug issue that year was a special issue about the eclipse, and as you can see here, we flagged the solar event dramatically on our July/Aug cover, employing major sell-lines and the cover image to tout the eclipse.

But given the idiosyncracies of magazine publishing, timing was our challenge. The following issue, Sept/Oct, hit the newsstands in the second week of August—after the special July/Aug issue was off the stands but before the eclipse itself. We needed to be able to take advantage of current news stories about the upcoming event to help push the Sept/Oct newsstand issue in the days and weeks before August 21st.

To sweeten the pot, our team included a special 4-page information insert that would appear in the Sept/Oct issue for newsstand only. We would also bind in specially ordered safe solar eclipse viewers for the newsstand (in the July/Aug issue, we’d bound in viewers for subscribers).

To promote these bonus items, we stickered the newsstand issues and once again ran an eclipse on the cover. This decision represented a design challenge: We didn’t want potential readers to see another eclipse cover and think they’d already bought that issue. To mitigate that risk, I made sure the two images and the cover lines were substantially distinct in each issue. While Sept/Oct is traditionally our Astrophotography issue, we were also running one story about future eclipses. That gave us the opportunity to feature an eclipse image and cover lines on the full run of the magazine. 

The cover line “Amazing Astro Images” would attract eyes after the August 21st eclipse, but our hope was to have the lion’s share of sales in the first two weeks the issue was on the stand. 

In a side-by-side comparison, July/Aug is arguably stronger as a piece of design. It popped off the newsstand well against other magazines; it has clear, readable cover lines and a single focal point in its imagery. 

But what happened next is a testament to the power of outside forces (North American TV, radio, newspapers, social media): The Sept/Oct issue was the biggest and best-selling issue in the almost 25-year history of the magazine. We had American stores calling us up on the eve of the eclipse asking for more copies, and ultimately, we had a newsstand sell-through of 75%... this is unicorn-level sales in the world of magazines, where 35% is considered a huge success. 

So, a tip to magazine publishers: Run a cover story about a rare event that’s happening on one day only, in the middle of the day, across most of North America, that millions of people can see for free, and you won’t have to do any of your own press.