Categories: OLD Media Moves

Bloomberg Businessweek cover is subversive genius

John Brownlee of Fast Company examines the thinking behind Bloomberg Businessweek‘s last cover of Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Brownlee writes, “This isn’t the first Businessweek cover that has made Tim Cook look like an idiot. Just last year, Businessweek put Cook on the cover with the tagline ‘What Us Worry?’, drawing a parallel between the Apple CEO and Mad Magazine‘s gap-toothed buffoon of a mascot, Alfred E. Neuman.

“I asked Businessweek Creative Director Robert Vargas if the intention was to send a message to readers about Tim Cook’s credentials (or lack thereof) by choosing these specific colors and typeface for the cover. Perhaps not so surprisingly, Vargas stuck with Bloomberg’s official story that the only intent was make Tim Cook look like a happy, fun-loving CEO.

“‘We were really happy with the spirit of the cover photo, and how it’s the antithesis of the formality and seriousness you might expect from a portrait of a powerful CEO,’ Vargas told me in an email. ‘We found and experimented with the font Learning Curve’– we thought the playfulness of it made a great match and enhanced the surprise.’

“So maybe it was unintentionally genius. Businessweek has had its share of horrible covers over the years, but in this case, horrible is good.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

Dynamo hires former Business Insider executive editor Harrington

Former Business Insider executive editor Rebecca Harrington has been hired by Dynamo to be its…

24 hours ago

Bloomberg TV hires Kerubo as desk producer

Bloomberg Television has hired Brenda Kerubo as a desk producer in London. She will be covering Europe's…

24 hours ago

Jittery CNBC staff reassured by new boss

In a meeting at CNBC headquarters Thursday afternoon, incoming boss Mark Lazarus presented a bullish…

1 day ago

Making business news accessible to a wider audience

Ritika Gupta, the BBC's North American business correspondent, was interviewed by Global Woman magazine about…

1 day ago

Rest of World hires Lo as China reporter

Rest of World has hired Kinling Lo as a China reporter. Lo was previously a…

1 day ago

Bloomberg rises to No. 7 biz news website

Bloomberg News saw strong unique visitor growth to its website in October, passing Fox Business…

1 day ago