Sex Sells
Even for religious magazines.
Christianity Today’s March cover clearly shows a magazine trying to push boundaries, with white space surrounding the bold, red words “Christianity,” “Addicted” and “Sex.” “Trying” is apparently the key word for Winslow Taft, senior art director at Mental Floss magazine, who says the cover is “very close to being great,” but not quite. His advice: “Hit the reader with the message hard and do not give them an abundance of white space to get comfortable around the image.” But it’s not about a message, according to Christianity Today’s senior managing editor Mark Galli. “The article [it refers to] spends a lot of time showing how addictive sexual behavior is not just a moral or spiritual problem but has medical, biological and psychological dimensions.” Theologically, the apple doesn’t represent sin or sexual temptation as it does in pop culture, Galli says, but rather “temptation for man to live on his own apart from God.” Devout subscribers may already know that, so mission accomplished. The average newsstand shopper probably won’t, so mission also accomplished. (It’s painful to type this but here goes: “sex sells.”) Anyway, as always, here’s your chance to chime in: Take the Face Up survey for a chance to win an iPod Shuffle! [EDITOR’S NOTE: Put your cover to the test. Send unique magazine covers to jpettas AT red7media DOT com]
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OCTOBER 9-10, 2018 | NEW YORK CITY
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