Harper's bazar midsummer number - poster
The pattern
This still is filed under Issue-as-product mood sell.
Define
The issue is sold as a feeling: a face, a color field, a stance. Not as a table of contents.
Mechanism
Mood as SKU. The reader buys the atmosphere and trusts the articles will match. Zoning and figure do the listing's job.
Verdict
We publish a periodical or drop and the buyer chooses identity before they choose an article.
Why it works
The issue is sold as an atmosphere rather than a contents list - dusk, a porch, a banjo - so the buyer is being offered the mood of her own summer back to her. Reserving the figures in unprinted white against a heavily worked grey ground does the job a photograph cannot: the eye goes to the people first, then up to the masthead, then down to the line that says which issue. The single orange accent is used three times - sun, hair, bottom line - which ties the sheet together and makes the sell line read as part of the picture. The hand-lettered bottom line is deliberately looser than the engraved masthead, marking one as the permanent brand and the other as the perishable news.
Steal this when
You are promoting a dated edition of an ongoing publication and the edition itself has no hard news in it. Sell the scene the reader will be in when they consume it, keep the masthead formal and the issue line informal.
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.