Vote for your favourite British magazine cover

The United Kingdom’s Professional Publisher’s Association is marking its 100th anniversary with a magazine covers contest open to public vote.

While there are only ten finalists from which to choose (rather disappointing, considering the thousands of titles and hundreds of thousands of magazine issues that have been published since 1913), the small selection is spread across generations and broad topics, from the world wars to technology, from the first issue of Cosmo to the legacies of Churchill, Chernobyl and Darth Vader.

This blogger was drawn to the 1941 Harper’s Bazaar cover featuring plump, almost Atari-like bombs falling around St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, with a brilliant yellow streak of fabric drawing the eye up through a blood-red bow to the helmeted dress form. The absence of cover lines makes a lasting impact, and the inherent nostalgia of the price line (“two shillings and sixpence”) probably swayed me, too. A magazine cover for its time and all time. (Or so says one voice. What do you think?)

Click here to view the finalists and vote. Voting closes on the distant date of September 30, 2013, and the winner will be announced on November 21, the exact one-hundred-year anniversary of PPA’s establishment.

{Tip o’ the hat: Canadian Magazines blog}