Top 40 Magazine Covers in 40 Years – ASME

So you want to know which are the top magazine covers. ASME has compiled a list of the Top 40 Magazine Covers in 40 Years.

Of these I remember the popular National Geographic girl whose story made international news. “One cover photo in 1985 was of an Afghan refugee, a young girl with piercing green eyes. Her image became world famous. After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan a search was conducted for the girl. She was identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula, a Pashtun. Her story was told in the March 2003 issue of National Geographic.” via Wikipedia

It has some popular magazine covers from popular international magazines like Time, Vanity Fair, Esquire, New Yorker, Life, People magazine, Fortune, Newsweek, the Economist magazine, National Geographic and even Playboy! Now you know more about popular magazine subscriptions…

Update: A ASME press release says

“The 40 greatest magazine covers of the last 40 years were unveiled today at the American Magazine Conference (AMC) 2005 at the Wyndham El Conquistador in Puerto Rico, by Mark Whitaker, President of American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and Editor of Newsweek magazine, and AMC Chairman Evan Smith, Editor of Texas Monthly.”

“Rolling Stone’s January 22, 1981 cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was named the top magazine cover to appear since 1965, while Vanity Fair’s cover featuring a naked, pregnant Demi Moore (August 1991), ranked as the # 2 cover. The # 3 cover from Esquire’s April 1968 issue depicted Muhammad Ali with six arrows in his body. Three Esquire covers were ranked among the top 10 covers of the past four decades, while The New Yorker had two covers among the top 10.”

See the descriptions of the top 40 covers.