The Best Magazine Covers of 2025

55 years × 12 months × 50 covers = 33,000 magazine covers

A rough estimate of the covers I have studied. The copies in my household. Not the covers I have seen, that is an impossible calculation. I am not including my first four years on earth, but I do know I was surrounded by magazines since birth and live and breathe this medium. Maybe my children should one day, do a tombstone that says “Mom had issues” although I would prefer to have “she had it covered”. Alas. The point is …I have had a long full life of thinking of covers, and as such prowled the net to catch 2025’s best covers.

in the 90’s when I started off as a photographer, there were editors who had very set ideas about a cover: eye contact, never use the colour green, apparently from studies done of what catches an eye on the magazine rack. Celebrities sold magazines. Do they still hold water?

I can see a change. It feels like the famous are giving magazines a few hours only to produce a cover… It looks like the photographer had an hour, but what I love is how the designer save it with typography. A hard pass.

Then you have Tilda. Has there ever been a bad photo of Tilda Swinton? Never seen one. When typography and an excellent photo merge on a cover, it is a thrill. And Interview Magazine has given us the most noteworthy celeb covers since Andy’s time.

Notes on the star covers. I like Esquire getting a cover in full sun, and bringing the location in, so spectacularly - even the floor boards work.. and that is a feat. It looks like a simple shot, but locations are really tricky. The photographer is also on a ladder of sorts. I love a cover that makes me ask myself how it was made, what lens was on the camera … the whole point of a cover is to pose questions that the inside of the magazine should answer a bit more.

It is also such a test of magazine editorial team when they can place a known face in a different way. And is the Micheal J Fox cover not the most endearing and impactful cover you seen?

And yes, the Editors of old had it right that the eyes need to connect.

And… then the rebel covers that do the opposite. And for me, more alluring.

A graphic cover is also a feat and has more to do with the eye of designer seeing something different.

Vogue Portugal’s team constantly give us the very best covers. No formula.

And the photographer with best cover of the year is the queen of fashion Russian photographer, Elizaveta Porodina.

Vanity Fair, sadly has lost the magic with groups on a cover. It is by far one of the most challenging feat on a cover, so we give some acknowledgement to the covers that got it right.

So we get to the covers that stirred me, it was the styling. the mood, the artistry. Salute to the best covers of 2025.

AND… the covers that gave us NOTHING.