Magazine Designers Are Very Creative And Unique

I saw these all hit your Flickr page earlier and wondered what you were up to. My guess was it might have to do with your book cover. I think I was right :)

I saw these all hit your Flickr page earlier and wondered what you were up to. My guess was it might have to do with your book cover. I think I was right :)

That’s just…. bizarre. I never noticed that before.

+ we are going to charge you more money for a half page piece of advertised content.

I suspect it’s nothing more than a design trend – “+” is just a cleaner, more angular and stark alternative to the ampersand – “&”.

Chris,
I’d guess that’s the symbolical use of “get more”
Symbols have power, you know…part of the collective consciousness.
And what is better than (+)when you are competing at the same store with the same product?
My 2 cents,
Lucio Ribeiro

Chris,
I’d guess that’s the symbolical use of “get more”
Symbols have power, you know…part of the collective consciousness.
And what is better than (+)when you are competing at the same store with the same product?
My 2 cents,
Lucio Ribeiro

Like the others, I never noticed that before, but it is quite ubiquitous.

+ is something that we are familiar with. We grew up with it in school, and the + has always been used in love doodles: L.P + D.D. or whatnot.

Great post!

Sticking by my comment that trust agents (and their archetypal symbols) are bullshit. To me, putting a + sign on a cover is like adding 3 exclamation points at the end of a sentence. I feel like I’m talking to a 9th grader.

I use it in my company name because it looks cleaner. Bee Large Photography + Media. just didn’t like & or and – it sort of makes it stand out more.

The + sign has one inherent value that the ampersand does not, actually. It implies added value, and is not necessarily just a simple “oh wouldn’t this be hip and trendy if we replaced the & with +!!”

They may not admit it, but magazine Art Directors and Designers are highly influenced by other magazines.

I used to run a small publication, and it was common practice to study competitive and non-competitive mags the first week of each month.

Other than a select few titles from the art/creative genre, the framework for every magazine is nearly identical. From covers to mastheads to features, they’re all practically the same.

Hmmm, it seems like it may also have to do with the whole texting deal. I don’t text, but people shorthanding everything would be using + for “and” and “&”, right?

Just a thought!

I’d rather see 24 magazines with a plus sign on the cover than 24 magazines with a colon on the cover…

Very interesting observation, Chris! I suppose it’s just one of those design trends. The big one with Web design right now (I suppose an equivalent to the print +) is the conversation box-like shape. It’s prevalent on Twitter (as you very well know) and on sites like Vimeo. It’s just that little triangle added onto a square. That small detail makes any site 10x cooler. You know what I’m talking about? I call it the happy tail, but I’m sure there’s a technical design term for it.

I’ve noticed the +-trend but it seems to be much worse on the other side of the pond. It’s ready to die soon, bring back the ampersand all is forgiven.

+

+ = “plus” which conveys more sense of benefit and bonus than & = “and”

it’s aspirational too. latin “plus ultra” = ever more; always higher.

Whodathunk? Pretty interesting trend to spot + great comments.

RE: Pam Martin’s comment about talking to a 9th grader, I’ve often heard that many people only read at that level. Evidently, magazine designers think it’s true. K+I+S+S = Keep it simple stupid.

Can’t wait to see how + plays out next for you.

The things you catch Chris! I think this is a subtle yet strategic editorial call-out to Gen Y and Millennial Readers: it catches their eye and makes them think that the magazine is cutting edge with text-messaging symbols. Up next: @?

That’s like the FedEx logo and it’s secret arrow that I can’t help but see now. Now I’ll never look at a magazine stand the same way again.

An arrow? Holy crap – you’re right! I learn so much from you Chris, and your readers.

That’s very interesting. I’m going to go look at a magazine rack.

I am so surprised by the comments here, especially by the women.
This is common for print magazine covers, and has been going on for a long time.

What’s the online equivalent that visitors see on a site
in the first seconds?

The “+” has become the visual psycholinguistic equivalent of the infomercial’s audio cue “But wait, there’s more!”

As well, the “+” makes a bit more sense linguistically as an isolated element of visual grammar than an ampersand, which is strictly a shorthand for “and”.

Being the arithmetic operator for the aggregation of elements into a greater whole, this is intended to make the magazine’s value proposition stand out, instead of just saying “Here’s a bunch of stuff, oh, AND this other stuff too”.

Marketing is, after all, a form of psychology and uses that understanding of the mind to manipulate the consumer population into preferring your product over your competitor’s.

Or maybe not… Just my own unscientific observations and conclusions :)