This idea occurred to me in a recent meeting, as Andy was telling us about a post he had contributed to on magculture.

Andy explains:

‘Mr Newsagent, in his wisdom, divides the shelves thus: cheapest titles in front. Apart from Vogue, Dazed and i-D, as he must be trying to bring a touch of glamour to his little corner of NW5.

Fastest moving titles in front. As in womens weeklies, Nuts, Zoo, etc. But also Glamour, the biggest selling women’s monthly (and only £2) sitting next to Zoo. It’s small format, so it’s high sales gets it onto the front row regardless of what it sits next to. Double facing suggests this title is still fresh.

Titles in bags all at the back. If ever anyone needed proof of the active real estate of a newsstand cover, this is it. Titles that readers have looked at, then decide not to buy, stuffed back in at wonky angles.

Men’s to the right, girl’s up top, and homes, bizarrely over to the left. No risk of More getting anywhere near Look, which will piss emap off mightily. And confirms that newsagents often place titles with some considerable intuition. Hence More sitting next to Mizz.

And of course, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, there’s always the lottery’.

I explained that last year I had read an article in the Guardian about how fluorescent jackets to make people stand out now in fact renders them invisible. This led me to the conclusion that in the modern world fluorescent colours no longer stand out they recede, and I wondered what impact this had on the news stand?

I also notice that the use of fluorescent colour is usually in a solid block, but that the edges of that block are angled, not square. This brought to mind ‘dazzle camouflage‘. Dazzle camouflage works on the idea that unlike conventional camouflage that blends an object with its background, you take one object and break it up. It was rightly assumed it would be very difficult to hide a battleship but it was felt with the use of angled lines and shapes you could break it up. Thus confusing enemy gunners. So I was wondering how visually confusing the use of angled and strong coloured edges was on the eye.

So I have broken out all the magazine covers to see how they behave. I have taken my local newsagents shelf as a starting point. Then I have just shown the fluro colours, then the fluro and primary colours. Do the individual magazines hold their own? Does the use of strong angles in the design cause them to break up? Have the individual magazines become invisible and camouflaged? Hmmm…..