the new yorker magazine released their first animated cover on instagram last week. check it out here. now think about what that means! like so many innovations, now that i see it and it makes so much sense i'm surprised more major publications haven't done this yet. i am a huge advocate of creating content that is right for the vehicle you've chosen, meaning that pasting print materials into a pdf and putting it on your website does not work. you need to adapt it for each channel, like they've done here. by pasting print content as is onto a digital medium you are missing so many opportunities - mainly the opportunity the web gives you to get your customers/viewers to engage with your content (click, share, etc) in a more meaningful way. print based brands particularly need to be thinking about how to repurpose their content for different digital platforms. might as well start with the cover!

this "animated cover" reminds me of a cinemagraph, a half-video-half-image invented by jamie beck and kevin burg. according to their site, "a cinemagraph is an image that contains within itself a living moment that allows a glimpse of time to be experienced and preserved endlessly." burg is a visual graphics artist and beck, his wife, is a fashion photographer; they came up with the cinemagraph while experimenting with gifs. check out their beautiful cinemagraphs here and their blog (a must for fashion lovers) here.