A cover story

How The Economist brings its front page to life

Every week the front cover of The Economist takes on a different style, flipping from satire to poignancy and dancing across the colour palette. Until last year, however, our covers all had one thing in common — they didn’t move. Knowing that readers increasingly encounter the latest issue not in print but on a screen, our designers wanted the freedom to bring their covers to life.

In March last year, Tom Standage [deputy editor] asked me how well I knew Monty Python. I wasn’t expecting it, but I told him I love their humour. He asked if I could try animating one of the covers in a Terry Gilliam style. That’s one of the best requests I’ve had in my entire career. So I attempted our first ever animated cover, featuring Vladimir Putin. As it was the first it took a little while while I experimented. We didn’t share it, but in the end it looked great. We decided we could go ahead and do it weekly.

At the beginning the animations were seen as a bit of a gimmick, but soon I started to work much more closely with the cover team and their illustrators, resulting in them layering their designs and drawing specific things. The Economist goes to print on a Thursday, and usually by Tuesday a cover idea will have been agreed. So we’ll discuss how to animate it, and I’ll ask the illustrators to work on different parts.

For example, if there is a person on the cover, the artist might draw the hand and the arm separately, so that they can move independently. Not only that, they’ll also layer the images, adding detail to the background.

By Wednesday night the cover is finalised, and on Thursday I send my version to a team that includes senior editors, the cover team and the newspaper’s art director. Everyone is very meticulous. On last week’s Catalonia cover, for example, the protesters’ mouths were taped shut. I added a soundtrack of protesters shouting, which led to a debate over whether the taped mouths meant it should be silent.

Once the animation is signed off it’s ready to be shared on social media and online. But if you go to Victoria station in London you’ll also see it on displays in WHSmith, next to the The Economist on sale — it looks pretty awesome.

Some covers make great animations, but others are harder. When it’s a sensitive topic we have to be careful, for example with the recent Donald Trump cover that featured Ku Klux Klan imagery. Sometimes just a small element of movement can add a great deal of meaning to an image. When we transformed Xi Jinping into Mao on an animated cover, our website got censored in China for a time. These things really have impact.

Another enjoyable cover had three scientists around a huge set of scales, trying to weigh the planet. It was for a story on measuring prosperity. Ten seconds is not a lot of time for an animation, but I managed to fit a lot in. The machine explodes, the planet falls on the scientists, it all goes wrong. That was real Monty Python stuff. I just needed a foot coming down at the end!

There was a period in the 1970s when one artist would add abstract shapes and weird colours to the covers, and they were so groovy and of their time. I’d love to do those. Maybe I’ll just grab one and do it one day. There are also covers that mark huge historical events, like the first man on the moon. I’d love to bring “one small step for man” to life.

Bo Franklin is a Social Media Writer at The Economist.

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