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. Does that 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 Leo gave this cover photographer an hour, and more and more celeb covers come across like quick PR shots and not the crafted covers we got used to in the era of Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair.

Could it be that the cachet of being on a cover has been tainted? Not important anymore? Is it of more value to be on a chat show? We have a cultural ecosystem, and very much like fast fashion is causing huge dumps of plastic waste - the barrage of terrible photographs are being dumped in a virtual wasteland. It is important for a photographer to gave a game plan when doing a cover. Will you one day be able to do a book of your work? Annie Liebovitz is a great example of playing the long game that way. Knowing that it is not just a cover shoot, it can be history - like the cover she “shot” of John Lennon four hours before he was gunned down outside his apartment. You never know what the twists of time will produce. Do work that you can one day put in a gallery, would be my advice to photographers.

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. It does stir the soul.

And… then no eye contact, which could be perceived as an invite into a private world and yes, to look in the magazine for more.

There is such beauty in a simplicity - but not easy to capture.

Vogue Portugal’s team constantly give us the very best covers. No formula. Well thought out concepts, well executed, brilliant teams.

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. The styling, the mood, the artistry. Salute to the best covers of 2025.

AND… the covers that gave us NOTHING.