--- title: TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover | TIME description: TIME's Creative Director D.W. Pine on the power of the magazine's cover. canonical: https://time.com/video/tjOoBUmK/ og:title: TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover og:description: TIME's Creative Director D.W. Pine on the power of the magazine's cover. og:url: https://time.com/video/tjOoBUmK/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tjOoBUmK/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover twitter:description: TIME's Creative Director D.W. Pine on the power of the magazine's cover. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tjOoBUmK/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * History # TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover [Watch (HLS stream): TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tjOoBUmK.m3u8) (4:08)  _Published 2023-02-28. TIME's Creative Director D.W. Pine on the power of the magazine's cover._ --- Oct 10, 2023 5:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [SAG Awards: Carol Burnett wins lifetime achievement award](/video/VksKj0Q9/) ### SAG Awards: Carol Burnett wins lifetime achievement award [Photographer James Nachtwey Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award](/video/fQ839g4B/) ### Photographer James Nachtwey Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award [Debbie Reynolds Accepts SAG Lifetime Achievement Award](/video/42l0QMKt/) ### Debbie Reynolds Accepts SAG Lifetime Achievement Award --- ## Transcript We are all inundated with millions and millions of images that are thrown at us. Every single day. People will be watching the result. It always is pleasantly surprising to see what a Time. Cover can break through the media landscape. What time cover needs to be clear traffic, sometimes provocative, but it always tries to cast of subject of importance within that red frame. I try to think of it as a journalistic poster for x. The First Time cover was March 3rd of 1923 Henry, Luce and Brittany Hayden, the two founders of time for beavers, Lee, running around, trying to figure out how to put the issue out at the last minute. They're like, well, we need to have a cover. They reached out to an advertising friend of theirs, he created these hand-drawn little Scrolls up the side. They're trying to figure out whose subject it was Speaker of the House. Joseph Cannon. The story about Cannon was only about 300 words, didn't even fill up an entire column of that first issue. But I've always loved by those early covers of time is it's all hand drawn and then one of the times advertising Chiefs thought, will you need a little bit more? You either need pretty girls. Babies are red and yellow for the cover, Philip Kobe, who was in Britain, Hayden's office took out a red crayon and on a 1926 cover of time. Just put a really strong red border. Here's what you need to do. And from 1927 till today. Order has been one of the more iconic frames around the magazine sent. In 1930s and editor named Dana, Tasker came on board really felt like that was an opportunity for time to take more risk. And one of the first big risk was a pin-up artist drawing of Rita, Hayworth readers, reactions were very mix, thumbprint to cancel their subscription and others were like, wow, Tasker also found what became known as the ABCs Boris. Artzybasheff Ernest, Hamlin Baker and board shall open these three artists in 900 covers of time. They brought in backgrounds that match the cover subjects. They can establish to look for more than four decades where they really gave personality to their subjects. What are the more iconographic treatments is the Red X? The first started when news came that a doctor and informed the Pressman to put a red X across his face from there. The Red X has been used a handful of times more recently with Osama bin Laden Time Magazine used in a recent issue to describe what is happening in front of a Time Magazine cover to cover any number of subjects from Health to sports to world leaders, to presidents to The Climate to business than everything in between the same variety holds true, with how we approach the cover visually black and white photography. Pencil drawings watercolors typography paper, mache silk screen printing sand, and even flying drone, 950 8, to be exact I'm spent almost half my life coloring inside times, 8 by 10 and a half inch frame, and I find it funny that, as you grow older, we're taught that in order to be creative. You have to think outside the box. But as more than 5,200 Time covers have shown over the last 100 years, creativity can flourish inside the lines, especially when you have some of the world's best photographers and artists that have a stomach and a time moves for it. I'm hopeful that focus and creativity remains just as valuable over the next 100 years. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME's Creative Director on the Meaning of the Magazine's Cover","description":"TIME's Creative Director D.W. Pine on the power of the magazine's cover.\n","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/tjOoBUmK/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-02-28T11:30:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/tjOoBUmK.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/tjOoBUmK/","duration":"PT4M8S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/tjOoBUmK/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```