This feature story uses the phrase “on top of the world” as a metaphor for Sandra Bullocks latest notable accomplishment. This use of clever wording in the headline  allows the reader to understand what the story is going to be about and lures them with the knowledge that Bullocks new movie “Gravity” is a huge hit.

In the case that a reader perusing through the pages of Vogue is not aware of Bullocks latest theatrical film, the deck goes on to explain what the story is specifically, filling in the gaps of an unanswered questions.

Both the headline and the deck do a really great job of tying Bullocks feature film “gravity” with the story with clever wording including “on top of the world”, “new heights” and “outer-space thriller”. The combination of this language with the picture below work to create a very enticing and effective headline. This is furthermore reinforced with the fact that Bullock is wearing what appears to be some sort of high fashion space suite with her arm resting on a gold space helmet. The sum of the individual parts of this feature story are hugely impacting and work to draw the reader in for more.

There are slight differences on the iPad magazine cover and the actual magazine cover, like the orange circle that says “Go to ew.com/digitalissue to read on your tablet!” because obviously, you would not need that if you are reading the magazine on an iPad. Everything else, however is the same, just scaled down for the size of the iPad. Stylistically, the red circle matching Entertainment was a bold move, and is smarter than using one of the other square colors as the color of the nameplate. The cut outs of the characters of each movie and show with the different color background adds to the effect of the “comic” portion of Comic Con, as it started as a comic convention.

I couldn’t find the vertical version of the iPad design cover, but I did find the print version. I really like the design because the picture is extremely powerful, and the nameplate is cool because it’s opacity is not 100%. There are slight differences between the iPad design and the print. For example the size of the typeface is bigger in print, and the spacing and cropping of the picture is slightly different due to the vertical and horizontal spaces used. I really like how the burst of the solar storm leads to the headline of the article, and I like the leading done on the headline as well. Overall, I really like the cover design done on this National Geographic issue.

iPad Magazine Cover:

Print Magazine Cover:

Unfortunately, this magazine cover only had a horizontal layout. I like it a lot though, especially because it resembles what I want my iPad designs to look like. The way the motorcycle bleeds off the top and bottom of the design really gives way to the engine and the pipes. The typography is well-chosen as well because it is sleek and silver; similar to the pipes of the motorcycle. The biggest difference between the digital cover and the print cover is that the type in the digital cover is larger. In addition, the image in the print cover appears to larger than the image in the digital cover.