6. Cover Design

The cover functions as both a poster and the issue’s business card — it is what decides whether a reader picks up the magazine, and it is the one page that must work on its own, detached from the context of the interior. The guidelines below cover design principles, the required informational content, and preparing the files for print (page 4, spine, and optionally pages 2 and 3, plus bleed).

6.1 Cover Design Principles

• Information hierarchy: 1) magazine logotype/name, 2) the issue’s main image/motif, 3) content teasers (cover lines), 4) issue number and date — in this order of visual importance.
• Legibility at a distance: the cover must “work” as a thumbnail and from a distance (on a shelf, as a cover on social media) — a large, high-contrast title, a limited number of elements.
• Top zone (top third of the page) is the most exposed area — this is where the magazine’s logotype should sit, remaining legible even if the bottom of the cover were partly obscured.
• Consistency with the interior identity: the same (or related, display) typefaces and the same colour palette as inside, but at a larger scale and with greater compositional freedom.
• Tension between image and typography: the title and cover lines may overlap the photograph/illustration, provided legibility is preserved (tonal contrast, a “quiet” area in the frame for text).
• Simplicity: the cover is not the place to summarise the whole issue — it is an entry point, not a table of contents.

Fourteen Stops: a cover built around a single, dominant punctuation mark at a very large scale (e.g. quotation marks or an exclamation mark) as the main graphic motif, in the spirit of the chapter-opening pages. Title set in Fraunces.

Dada: a cover in the spirit of a Dadaist poster/collage — a broken grid, overlapping elements, Big Shoulders Display paired with an archival photograph or collage.

6.2 Information on the Cover (Page 1)

Required:

• magazine name / logotype
• issue number and date (month or season, year)
• main theme / headline of the issue (the main cover line)

Recommended, for the mock-up’s realism:

• 2–4 additional content teasers (cover lines), ideally with a page-number reference
• a main photograph or illustration related to the issue’s theme
• price (optional)
• barcode and ISSN number in a corner of the page (mock-up, optional — to increase the realism of the mock-up)

6.3 Page Four (Back Cover)

The back cover is visually calmer than page 1 — it functions as a closing statement, not an invitation. Typical content in a student mock-up:

• a quote or motto drawn from the issue (e.g. an excerpt from the “Dada Manifesto 1918” or a line from the epilogue of “14 Stops”)
• a short description / editorial mission statement of the magazine (2–3 sentences)
• publisher details, website address, social media
• barcode and price (if used on page 1)
• a possible continuation of the graphic motif from the front cover (e.g. another variant of the same punctuation mark, another fragment of the collage)

Page four should not function as a table of contents, nor duplicate the content of page 3 — it is a separate, self-contained composition.

6.4 Spine

• The spine only becomes visible and typographically useful with perfect (glue) binding, generally from around 60–80 pages upward.
• With saddle-stitch binding — typical for a length of 24–48 pages, and so for the suggested 24–32-page range in this brief — the spine is too narrow for any graphic or text element and is, in practice, omitted from the design; pages 4–1 and 2–3 are part of the same sheets.
• If a spine is present (a mock-up with a larger page count): it carries the magazine name (set vertically), issue number and date — it must be legible when the issue is placed spine-out on a shelf.
• Spine width = (number of pages ÷ 2) × the thickness of a single sheet + cover thickness — a value to be confirmed with the printer based on the paper weight chosen.

Recommendation for both titles at a length of 24–32 pages: design the cover as a saddle-stitched booklet, with no visible spine.

6.5 Pages Two and Three (Inside Cover)

• Page 2 (inside front cover): most often a short “editor’s note” with the author’s signature, or a continuation of the cover’s graphic motif, or an extended lead for the issue.
• Page 3 (inside back cover): most often the full table of contents or the masthead/colophon — an alternative location to placing it at the end of the issue.
• Technically, with saddle stitching, pages 2–3 are printed on the same sheet as 1 and 4, but from a design standpoint they are treated as a separate spread (see the diagram in point 6.6).

14 Stops: page 2 — a short “editor’s note” echoing the idea of a route/stops; page 3 — the table of contents in the form of a line map (see point 4.1).

Dada: page 2 — a continuation of the collage from the cover, or an opening quote; page 3 — the table of contents in the form of a journey map through the cities (see point 4.2).

6.6 Technical Guidelines for Preparing the Cover for Print

• Prepare the outer cover (4 + spine + 1) and the inner cover (2 + 3) as two separate files/spreads — do not combine them with the pagination of the issue’s interior.
• Before sending to print: check overprints and transparencies, embed all fonts in the PDF file, and verify that no important element (logotype, text) falls within the bleed zone or outside the safety margin.

Typography of Dadaist Manifestos

Breaking Up Traditional Typesetting

The Dadaists deliberately broke with the symmetrical, “Gutenberg” page layout — the centered text block, uniform typeface, and regular line spacing. Instead, they used:

• asymmetrical composition — elements scattered across the page, with no central axis
• breaking the grid — text does not stay within columns or margins, and can “spill” beyond the page area
• irregular spacing — between letters, words, and lines — deliberately disrupting the reading rhythm

The Letter and the Word as Image

This is perhaps the most important principle: the word stops being merely a carrier of meaning and becomes a visual element.

• mixing typefaces and weights within a single word or line (e.g., half a word in bold, half in a thin weight)
• abrupt jumps in scale — one word enormous, the next microscopic; hierarchy arises from emotion and the rhythm of the utterance, not from logical importance
• rotation and angle — text set diagonally, vertically, or upside down
• overlapping letters — letters can overlap, collide, “shout” over one another

Collage and Found Materials

Especially among the Berlin Dadaists (Hausmann, Höch, Heartfield), typography merged with photomontage:

• fragments of newspapers, tickets, stamps, and labels pasted directly into the text
• print treated as a found object — “ready-made” typography torn from its context and reused
• geometric lines, rules, and black fields as independent compositional elements, not mere ornamentation

Typography as a Notation of Sound

Ball and Hausmann created so-called poster poems (Plakatgedichte) — single letters or syllables scattered across the whole page in wildly different sizes, so that the graphic layout captured the rhythm and loudness of the spoken word. The division into lines followed breath and sound, not grammar or the sense of the sentence.

Principles You Can Apply

• Abandon centering — scatter fragments of text freely across the page
• Vary the typeface and weight within a single paragraph, or even a single word
• Play with scale without a logic of hierarchy — let importance arise from emotion, not from rules
• Introduce diagonal or vertical lines of text
• Let letters overlap one another or spill beyond the margin
• Add “found” graphic elements — lines, blots, stamp-like fonts
• Treat punctuation and spacing irregularly, instead of justifying the text