The D&AD Awards Magazine & Newspaper Design category celebrates the absolute pinnacle in digital magazines, magazine design, supplements, editorial design and magazine layouts. But sometimes it’s the simplest of magazine cover designs that win over a jury. The examples below show D&AD award winning, powerful front covers that revel in their own bravery.
Bloomberg Businessweek
Award: In Book / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine Front Covers / 2012
For Bloomberg, the goal is to design original, surprising covers each week that make people pick up the magazine. They strive for something that looks a little removed from what people traditionally perceive an American business magazine to look like, yet something accessible to anyone passing a newsstand.

Bloomberg Businessweek – Steve Jobs 1955-2011
Award: Yellow Pencil / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Entire Magazines / 2012
Official word of Steve Jobs’ death reached ‘Bloomberg Businessweek’ as the staff of 40 was finishing a regular issue. The regular issue was scrapped and the staff spent all night finalising the special issue. The special issue provides an in-depth look at the man behind all the products that the world admires.

Granta 110: Sex
Award: In Book / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine Front Covers / 2011
Granta magazine tackles numerous themes through literature and art. In this issue, they addressed the toughest topic of all – sex – from an array of angles. 110 provides an example of how Granta try to use cover art to initiate dialogue and as the catalyst for branding universal topics. The cover was printed on a tactile, velveteen stock, playing on our sense of touch.

The New York TImes Magazine Israel vs Iran
Award: In Book / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine & Newspaper Front Covers / 2013
Agency: There Is
For the ‘Israel vs Iran’ cover, a war- torn approach was in order, creating the headline in the smouldering remains of the aftermath of conflict. The challenge was to express drama in a rough yet clean aesthetic using raw and evocative materials. Achieving clear legibility while retaining an organic feel to the type was key to creating a bold typographic piece that resonated strongly with the subject.

Wallpaper* Work Issue
Award: In Book / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine Front Covers / 2009
Four covers were produced for Wallpaper* magazine’s first ever work-themed issue, using bold, striking type, with their own slogans: ‘Work is Play’; ‘Work More Live More’; ‘Work Hard and Be Nice to People’; and ‘Play and Work and Play’.
Typical of Anthony Burrill’s style, the covers were an apt continuation of his cult ‘Work Hard’ poster. The four collectable covers also used an experimental matt printing technique to further the tactility and individuality of each issue.

Time Magazine
Award: In Book / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine Front Covers / 2009
Agency: Euro RSCG
Time Magazine approached Euro RSCG with an opportunity to create a cover for their special issue, ‘100 Most Influential People’. They decided to use all 100 influential people in the composite of this one face.

New York Magazine – The City and the Storm
Award: Nomination / Magazine & Newspaper Design / Magazine & Newspaper Front Covers / 2013
New York Magazine sent photographer Iwan Baan up in a helicopter as Hurricane Sandy lifted and produced the image that, for many New Yorkers, told its own story. Because most other air traffic was grounded, the controllers allowed the helicopter a much higher ceiling than usual, giving Baan a far better vantage point than he’d otherwise have. We see laid out before us the familiar silhouette of lower Manhattan, inked out; a visual sinkhole – and then, to the north, slicing across as if with a razor, the dividing line that demarcates a city blazing with light.

via Seven Brave and Powerful Magazine Covers | D&AD.