Alternative Weeklies
04.19.10
The Village Voice covers of Ivylise Simones
Ivylise Simones was the art director of The Village Voice from January 2008-January 2010. She did over 100 covers in that time, many of them self-illustrated (Simones estimates that she created a third of the covers herself). The low budgets, quick production schedule, and Simones's own street smart design style helped to create a look that was brash, graphic, funny, provocative, and immediate. She used bold photography and strong original illustration to give the covers a unique sense of power and imagination. Here are 11 of the best Ivylise Simones covers from The Village Voice. (Above): November 18, 2009, illustration by Ivylise Simones. "Sometimes you can really amaze yourself with the things you can do when you are confronted with so many limitations."
(Left); April 22, 2008, photograph by Chad Griffith. (Right): August 20, 2008, illustration by Christoph Niemann.
Simones's Voice covers segued brilliantly between celebrity profiles and political commentary, but always felt part of the same visual language. Of the cover on the right, she says, "I always wanted to do an 8-bit cover and finally got the chance."
(Left): March 5, 2008, photograph by Howard Huang. (Right): April 2, 2008, illustration by Alex Ostroy.
The cover on the left was a dead-on parody of a New York magazine Lindsay Lohan cover, which itself was an homage to the famous Marilyn Monroe session photographed by Bert Stern (he shot the Lohan cover, too).
(Left): July 1, 2009. (Right): February 6, 2008, photoillustration by Ivylise Simones.
Simones: "This was (hopefully) our last Rudy cover. We created the entire cover, from pieces of stock images."
(Left): October 14, 2009, illustration by Jason Seiler. (Right): January 14, 2009, illustration by Tim O'Brien.
Simones cites as her influences New York City street art, "graphic design gurus" like Paula Scher, and Village Voice Media design director Michael Shavalier: "His work in the past 10 years for numerous altweeklies across the country blew my mind! I feel our craft in editorial design is one of a kind, and he set the bar. I used to spend hours just looking at his past covers for ideas."
(Left): February 20, 2008. Photo illustration by Ivylise Simones. (Right): May 6, 2009. Illustration by Ward Sutton.
Ivylise Simones was the art director of the Village Voice from January 2008-January 2010. Before that she was associate art director at Miami New Times. She's currently freelancing for Showtime Networks and working on multiple other projects.
Special thanks to Michael Shavalier, Village Voice Media design director, for his help.
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