Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts

In June of 1940, Print Magazine published their first journal titled Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts. At the time, the publications centered around the technical and scholarly aspects of the printing trade. 

Overtime, this journal evolved into a popular magazine that spoke about the news and facets of graphic design. This magazine and publication is so important to the history of graphic design because Print is the oldest graphic design periodical in the world. 

When analyzing this magazine cover, we can see that visually this cover is different than what we would normally see on the shelves of the grocery store. No masthead, no words, and no clear subject suggests that as their first issue, the cover was not the publishers main focus. Additionally, as mentioned before, this publication was more focused towards being a scholarly journal about the printing trade, rather than a popular magazine displaying the news. With that being said, we can infer that the publishers found more importance in the content of the journal. 

As for the success of this issue in particular, we can infer that it was not heavily reliant on the cover. However, for the time, a cover like this was very strange and unusual therefore enticing those interested in graphic design. 

After picking apart the qualities of this cover, personally I read this magazine as a work of art meant for those who can appreciate it. A colorful magazine that is full of words on the shelf of a grocery store is advertising to the public as a whole, and I don't believe Print Mag was trying to achieve a similar outcome with this issue.