The American Society of Magazine Editors (USA) has just announced it’s winners of their annual Best Covers Contest.

The ninth annual ASME Best Cover Contest was open to all consumer print magazines published in the 2014 calendar year. With 10 different categories, over 100 print magazines participated by submitting over 270 covers to the competition.

Their is also a Reader Choice Awards, which are voted on by Facebook users.

The Cover of the Year was The New Yorker’s “Broken Arch,” published on December 8, 2014, which pays tribute to race relations challenges in Ferguson, Missouri, last year.

The finalists in each category are show,  but the winners are:

Sports and Adventure:  ESPN The Magazine, October 13, 2014

Fashion and Beauty:  Harper’s Bazaar, March 2014

Business and Technology:  The Atlantic, November 2014

Family and Home:  FamilyFun, August 2014

Entertainment and Celebrity:  The New York Times Magazine, September 14, 2014

Science and Nature:  New York, June 9-15, 2014

Lifestyle:  Men’s Health, November 2014

Brainiest:  Bloomberg Businessweek, August

Most Delicious:  Bon Appétit, June 2014

And the Readers Choice Award Winner was Paper Magazine.

The latest (our 8th edition) in a series of SIP’s from Legion Magazine is scheduled to hit newsstands on June 22nd, 2015.

The magazine will retail for $14.95, and is only available at newsstands.

This issue focuses on the Battle of the Atlantic, which is to say the entire naval campaign during the Second World War.

Art Director Jason Duprau.

Toronto-based Rotman Management magazine competes with the Harvard Business Review.

The current issue is, in my opinion, the best cover yet produced since Rotman launched an aggressive newsstand expansion in both Canada and the U.S., back in January of 2013.

Kate Mills, circulation manager, informs me that this is the first time the magazine has done a split cover, with one version for subscribers, and this version for the newsstand. “This cover was created by Bakersfield – the Editor, Karen Christensen, showed them clip art that she liked and they created a fresh image for the cover based on it! Which I think is pretty cool of them,"  said Mills.

The 2014 version of Harrowsmith’s Garden Digest is a great case study in not giving up. But first let’s talk about the regular Harrowsmith Almanac that competes directly with the American Old Farmers Almanac.

When Yolanda Thornton brought back the classic Harrowsmith Almanac in 2013, the venerable name/brand was enthusiastically embraced by readers. The magazine sold-through at a very strong 37% on a huge draw.  This confirmed that the Harrowsmith brand still had pulling power.

This success encouraged Ms. Thornton to bring out a Gardening Almanac the following Spring season.  The cover was an almost identical replica of the regular Harrowsmith Almanac cover, but was labeled Spring. It was also priced a $5.95 and the distribution was replicated.  Unfortunately, the sales of the Spring Almanac were just 22% of what the Regular Almanac sold. See Covers Here:


Once again, the classic 2014 Harrowsmith Almanac was a huge success, selling-through again at a solid 37% efficiency on a sizeable draw.

But for the 2014 Gardening Digest we needed to make some radical changes. In 2014, to differentiate it from our regular Almanac, we re-named the issue the Gardening Digest.  We increased the size from a small digest format to a larger digest format (5.125 X 7.5 to 5.125 X 8.25).  We replaced 75% black and white pages on newsprint in 2013 to 100% full colour on glossy stock in 2014. We lowered the price from $5.95 to $4.95.  We scrapped the illustration and went with a photograph instead. We added a cover slash. We added a starburst button. We moved the UPC code to the lower right. And we massively cut back the draw by 45%. This allowed the title to invest in quality upgrades and promotions.  We invested in some targeted retail promotions that bore fruit:

• Sales at Canadian Tire promo up 73%
• Sales at Home Depot promo up 27%
• Sales at Lowes promo up 958%
• Sales at Metro Richelieu up 418%
• Sales at Loblaws promo up 123%
• Sales at Federated floor display up 144%
• Sales at Overwaite floor display up 424%
• Sales at Sobeys floor display up 78%

Overall, sales were up by 48% an efficiency improved by 16 points.

The May/June 2015 issue of Canadian Running is a milestone for the publication. This is the 50th issue of the magazine.

To celebrate, Publisher Sam Cohen, Editor-in-Chief Michael Doyle, and Art Director Warren Wheeler, have unveiled a new look.It’s a gentle evolution, but presents a much cleaner, bolder and powerful poster-like quality.