From the SPD Archives: Time Magazine Covers, 1977

Time was redesigned by Walter Bernard in 1977. Eight covers from that year appear in the SPD13 annual, including the July 4, 1977 issue (pictured above) which debuted the new logo designed by Walter. He was kind enough to share some insights and memories about the making of these covers and his time at Time.

Prior to Time, Walter had been at New York magazine for nine years; he left in January 1977 when it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch. Shortly thereafter, Time contacted Walter and offered him the position of Art Director. Walter says, "I told them no, because I didn't like the way the magazine looked." Time wasn't the kind of place to take no for an answer! Walter explains, "In February, I started a secret redesign that was to be presented in April or May. If they accepted it, I would become Art Director. If they didn't accept it, no one would ever know about it." 

I asked Walter what led him to the idea of the iconic Time cover corner "flap." "When I was working on the redesign, the editors asked for a second billing. I was trying to figure out a significant treatment rather than the standard secondary cover line." Walter had two influences for this idea. One was from something he had designed previously for an AIGA journal where he had folded several pages, photographed them, and positioned the image on the cover. This was in the days before Photoshop and computers, so it was much more complicated and costly to produce. The other source of inspiration was the 1970s redesign of Paris Match that Milton Glaser had done. Glaser notched off a corner of the red panel and added the word "nouveau."  "I thought the turned-down corner would be cool on the cover of Time--a peek to the inside--so I put that on the dummy." Another of Walter's significant contributions to the cover of Time was the introduction of a new generation of great contemporary illustrators such as Ed Sorel, Marshall Arisman, and Brad Holland.

Walter had an interesting story to share about the November 7, 1977 issue. The cover features a photograph of anthropologist Richard Leakey, who had discovered fossilized bone remains of Homo habilis. Leaky is pictured alongside a model wearing a mask representing the 2-million-year-old hominid on location in Africa, where the bones had been discovered. The mask was created by Hollywood make-up artist Bob O'Bradovich, and the photograph was taken by Carl Fischer. 

"Leaky had scheduled a trip to lecture in the US, and so the original cover idea was to shoot him with the model in Fischer's studio like Irving Penn's portraits of indigenous peoples." However, shortly before the cover shoot was to take place, Leaky's trip was unexpectedly cancelled. "I went to Time's managing editor Henry Grumwald to explain that the trip had been cancelled. Having come from New York magazine, I was not used the the large budgets of Time Inc. It never occurred to me that the solution would be to fly the entire team to Africa to complete the assignment." But that's exactly what they did. The result was the best selling issue since Nixon's resignation. According to Walter, it was also the catalyst for the launch of Discover magazine. Leon Jaroff, editor of the story, became Discover's founding editor. 

After leaving Time, Walter went on to redesign The Atlantic Monthly, Fortune, and Adweek. In 1983 he and Milton Glaser formed WBMG, where they took on mostly editorial projects for over 25 years. More recently, Walter's focus has shifted to designing books and film titles. He is currently working with Milton Glaser on a book of the work of WBMG.

Walter is a past president of SPD and chaired the SPD 25th Anniversary competition and gala.