Dueling Food & Wine covers for home subscribers (left) and newsstand (right).
We're always fascinated by the choices food magazines make in what to put on the cover each month.
What, for instance, drove the decision for Bon Appétit to put pasta on their May cover when other magazines went with more summery dishes? And how did Fine Cooking end up with ribs on the June/July cover, when most magazines went with burgers?
We're sure these issues are debated long and hard (and hopefully over plates of delicious food from the test kitchen).
But the thing about magazine covers that most fascinates us is when they decide to do two covers -- one for subscribers and another for newsstand. We see this most often in the fall, when we've noticed several magazines doing this for their Thanksgiving issues.
While we were at the supermarket recently, we saw the newsstand edition of Food & Wine's "best new chefs" issue. We were surprised to see the newsstand cover, featuring a beautiful shot of Green Tomatoes with Pistachio Relish, rather than the group-shot cover home subscribers received.
The choice totally makes sense to us. It stands to reason that home subscribers -- more likely to be foodies -- would take more interest in which chefs appear on the cover. The casual shopper at a bookstore or supermarket might be more drawn to a beautiful food photo. (Now, whether the more casual shopper is interested in a green tomato dish is a whole other question.)
Which cover do you prefer? Below -- take our (first!) poll. Plus, find out what those funny symbols are in the bottom right of each magazine cover.
The other striking thing about Food & Wine's July covers is the inclusion of a QR Code, that funny symbol in the bottom right hand corner of the cover. This is, to our knowledge, the first time a food magazine has put a QR code on its cover. But at this point you're probably asking, what the heck is a QR code, boys?
QR codes are tags that you can scan with a smartphone and then receive special info. (The "QR" stands for "quick response.") To access the extra content, you need to first download a free app to your web-enabled phone from gettag.mobi, open the app, and then scan the symbol.
At right, you can see the QR code for the English Wikipedia mobile page. QR codes are just starting to gain popularity in the U.S., but in more wired countries, particularly Asian nations like Japan and South Korea, QR codes plaster billboards, magazines, business cards, clothes, beer cans and more. In Japan, some people have even started using QR codes on graves, so that cemetery visitors can be linked to a Web page about the deceased.
Anyway, in the case of Food & Wine, you scan the tag and it loads a site that contains a 2-minute video featuring some of the Best New Chefs along with Food & Wine editor Dana Cowin. If you're interested, you can see the site and video in your web browser, though be warned, it doesn't look as good as it does on a phone since it was designed to be seen on a mobile device.
We think this is a cool idea and application by a food magazine. And we can see other applications for this in future issues, like scanning a tag to receive bonus recipes. Or what about scanning it to see photos that didn't make it into the magazine? We'd scan that.
So which Food & Wine cover do you prefer? Take our poll!
