This is a Sports Illustrated cover from last year featuring Washington National’s first round draft pick, Bryce Harper. I really like the design of this cover, mostly because of the color scheme. They took the picture of him in his high school uniform swinging the bat and used color from his jersey to design the rest of the cover. The headline reads ‘Baseball’s Chosen One’ (as he is expected to be a superstar in the Major Leagues) so they put him on a desert background. They made the headline, the magazine title, and parts of other story lines black, which is seen in a couple of places on Harper’s uniform, and also used white to complement the color of his pants and outline of his team name and number. I like that they did not use red in any other part of the design, leaving Harper’s jersey as the only red thing on the page draws the eye directly to him, the most important thing. I also like how they used the picture of Dwight Howard at the top to bring attention to another story. The picture they used has cut off feet, which ordinarily would look bad if not at the bottom of the page but because they have him coming out of the end of the word ‘Illustrated’ it looks good.
12 Apr
GRA217.3 Inglorious Baselines 
Posted by mjcohen13 on April 15, 2011 at 9:48 AM
I agree with Greg that this cover is well designed. What better place to have Harper stand out than a desert? He’s all by himself, and it’s his landscape to dominate. I also like the parallel structure used in the design. Harper is upright swinging the bat, and his column of statistics to the right is also vertical. It provides a nice piece of symmetry. The point Greg made about Dwight Howard it also a good one. Because that is the only other photo on the cover, it can be assumed that it’s the second most important story of the issue. People will be likely to check that piece out after reading the Harper story. Very balanced design that keeps your eye engaged from corner to corner, top to bottom.