Our Favorite 25 WIRED Covers of All Time

Much like a blockbuster movie poster or a photo on a book of donut recipes, a magazine cover is an essential opportunity to grab a reader and tell them what delicious stories are inside, with as much wit and visual persuasion possible. And while the Bengali typhoon of the digital revolution may have wiped away the importance of a print cover to sell magazines, the cover is still very important to us as a piece of design work and a symbolic representation of the issue. (Yes, we still see them at the airport and in supermarkets, but now that everything is available online, covers and cover lines aren’t as important for driving readers to a story any more.)

Planning the ultimate cover is an insane process. We always seem to have so much time for it … until we don't. You would think a month would always be enough, but no. Sometimes we know months in advance what the cover story is going to be; other times we don’t find out until a couple weeks before we ship an issue to the printer. The same goes with cover art. Sometimes we shoot the photo months in advance, and sometimes we have to pull something together a few hours before shipping (the cover for our Sex Issue was one of those). My first WIRED cover, as a photo intern, was the June 1997 "Pray" issue; I had nothing to do with it, but that was my first issue here. The meaning and process and technology of publishing has changed, but one thing has not changed: A good cover is a good cover, no matter its function. Here are some of our favorites from the past 25 years of WIRED, and some memories from the makers. —Anna Goldwater Alexander

“The photograph was taken at Laurie’s studio in New York. It is a shot of an image on a tube television screen. Laurie pointed a little 'lipstick' TV camera connected to a video projector at herself, and it was projecting its image of her onto her face and (I think) the background. She twiddled and diddled with the camera, and I twiddled and diddled with the projector, and the resulting feedback mess is the picture.” —Neil Selkirk, photographer

“James Porto created the image for us, a combination of photography and Photoshopped collage. We already had a tradition of poking fun at the all-powerful Microsofter; for this one, I asked James to find a model of the right age and estimated coder-paunch to place in a Hollywood producer’s pool. When we saw Jim’s horizontal image, we realized we could make the cover into a gatefold, as well.

The happy faces on Gates’ trunks were from some short-lived Microsoft product, but I don’t remember the product or its name." —John Plunkett, founding creative director

"The 'Microsoft product' on Bill Gates's trunks was Bob." —Louis Rossetto, founding editor in chief

"The primary challenge with creating a photorealistic composite of Bill Gates on a pool float was to find someone who had the same skin type and body shape that believably matched a stock photograph of his face. We casted about 40 people in their boxers, and out of all of them, one man’s pale, freckly skin and soft belly seemed perfect to match the quintessential computer nerd who was responsible for Windows (yikes). Once we had our hero body, it was not difficult to photograph all the elements, matching light to the stock image, and merge everything in Photoshop." —James Porto, photographer

"This is the one I’m most proud of. Jony Ive was quoted as saying that it scared him: He thought Apple was going to go out of business. But we created this image to tap into the deep emotional connection Apple’s customers have for the company, and then with the headline, literally prayed for the Second Coming of Steve. And he did return a month later! I never got to ask him, but I hope our cover played some small part in his return, or at least the timing of it." —John Plunkett

"We loved Apple. I mean, we really loved Apple. We had such a large installation of Apples at WIRED that then-Apple CEO Michael 'The Diesel' Schindler dropped by for a look, probably to boost his own morale. Apple’s accelerating demise in the mid 1990s was excruciating to watch. But we had other ideas. 101 of them, in fact. And then John Plunkett created the genius cover that got them noticed.

At least Steve Jobs must have noticed. Because, aside from implementing numbers 4, 10, 12, 19, 31, 34, and 44, he called me one day and asked if he could buy an ad on the back cover to introduce his new baby. Seemed like he had read number 14 on our list: 'Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourself from the pack.' His new baby was the bright jelly bean iMac.

Oh, and he took number 52 to heart as well: 'Return to the heady days of yore and insist Steve Jobs regrow his beard.'” —Louis Rossetto

“To create a scene about the dawn of the private space race, we hired CGI artists Armstrong White in collaboration with Saddington & Baynes. Creative director Scott Dadich had some movie reference from Terminator 3 and some desert stills, and that was our jumping-off point.

I remember bringing one of the first sketches in to editor in chief Chris Anderson's office and him saying that it looked like children's wallpaper, which was pretty accurate. After several more rounds of sketches, 12 to be exact (because I still have them all), I think we finally got to a very realistic place. One of the trickiest things was getting those exhaust plumes just right. We were all really into Battlestar Galactica, and that proved to be a great source of inspiration, especially since we got to watch a couple of episodes from the conference room. We were all practically living there anyway, so why not?” —Maili Holiman, former art director, incoming creative director

“I spent two weeks trying to reach manga artists in Japan and got nowhere. Little did I know that manga artists are not like illustrators or even comic book artists in the US. They only communicate through publishers. So, what else to do but go to Japan myself and investigate. Two days later I hit the ground in Shibuya. Dan Pink, the author of the cover story, had given me a connection with a Japanese publisher, and the next day I was in a small studio apartment sitting criss-cross apple sauce with manga artist Yoishiro Ono. Through a translator I explained what we hoped to achieve with a cover design and image, had tea, did my best at bowing, and was on the plane home the next day with preliminary sketches. Two weeks later, having literally slept at the office multiple times, we had a final design. Yes, the breasts are manga-esque to be sure, and there was no lack of complaints around the office about it. I worked with Ono to make those less overt, but it was a bit difficult since hyperstylized anatomy, from breasts to eyeballs, is a part of manga culture. However, what was more important to me was our character’s body language. I wanted her to be powerful, confident, even a bit intimidating—and I think we achieved that. The cover ended up winning a silver medal from the Society of Publication Designers the following year. I flew back to Japan (on my own dime this time) and hand-delivered his award over sake and sushi. It was one of the best dinners of my life. We couldn’t understand each other at all—but that didn’t stop us from having a damn good time.” —Carl De Torres, then art director

“For a long time, WIRED didn’t cover much health care or medicine—it was either too pedestrian and uncompelling, or just too far out and fanciful. But that started to change in the 2000s, when consumer-facing information technology started to meld with the health sciences. The biggest shift was the arrival of true consumer genomics, and we were lucky enough to get an exclusive on 23andMe in 2007. I spent months embedded with this curious new startup as they worked out how to calibrate very complicated science for the everyday citizen. The resulting story was selected for the Best American Science Writing anthology, and the cover won several awards, including a piece of the National Magazine Award for best design. The actual design, by Wyatt Mitchell, was inspired by chromosome maps. And it received quite the compliment when geneticist Craig Venter’s memoir came out a year or so later … with a surprisingly similar cover design.” —Thomas Goetz, then executive editor

“I was introduced to working at WIRED in a baptism of fire. On my first day in the office I worked until 5:30 am and wasn’t even the last one to leave (it was Carl De Torres). I went home thinking, 'I’ve made huge mistake.'

A month later, Scott Dadich and I were pitching concepts for the next cover about DNA testing, and all I can remember were ideas failing, ideas dying, ideas brutally killed by the end of the day. Before I knew it, we were out of ideas and nearly out of time. As night brought with it desperation, we opened a bottle of Maker’s Mark, got on our computers, and just started free-styling. How does WIRED visualize such a unique and innovative concept? The answer: no illustrators, no photographers, no special typefaces. Just two ding-dong designers and a bottle of bourbon. I never felt more a part of Wired. I went home thinking, ‘I’ve made the best decision taking this job.’ Check the cover credit.*” —Wyatt Mitchell, then design director

“WIRED was always not just about the technology but also the consequences, and ideally the second-order consequences, of that technology—the reactions to the action. Of course technology is going to change the world; of course it's going to be mind-blowing—but what then?

So after we spent a decade explaining how the internet (read: Google) was going to collect all the world's information and make it useful, we considered what it would take to avoid that. Long before the concept of 'the right to be forgotten' started circulating, we asked Evan Ratliff to try to disappear. Combine a good idea, the effort to actually put it into practice, and the genius of a great writer and you get the conditions for something truly original and revealing. Unforgettably so, ironically enough." —Chris Anderson, then editor in chief

"Sometimes when you work on a story, you’re not sure it’s actually, genuinely good until after it goes public. This story wasn’t slated to be the cover, and I had no idea how we would art it anyway. But then Scott Dadich, the creative director at the time, came up with this beautiful—stark and simple—design that blew my mind. And I knew it would be a hit.” —Nick Thompson, then senior editor

“Scott Dadich was surfing art blogs one day and came across this beautiful photo on the (now-defunct) site Ffffound.com. He took a screenshot of it and saved it for future use. When the time came and he wanted to use it for this cover, he had the screenshot, but not the original file or the name of the artist or even when he saw it or on what art blog he saw it. That was before ‘reverse image search’ was a thing, so the entire photo department went on a deep mission. ‘Sometime within the last couple of months on one of these four blogs, this beach shot was posted,’ he told us. We had to find it. The entire day was spent on this search, and then all of a sudden, on around web page 249,000, I screamed ‘I GOT IT!!!!’ The teenage photographer in Spain who originally posted the photo had no idea how much he meant to all of us. There may have been some tears.” —Sarah Filippi, then associate photo editor

“One of the great joys of working in the creative department at WIRED is getting to ask absurd ‘What if?’ questions and then go create those outlandish realities. Like asking Will Ferrell to don a white unitard and antennae and search for the future that never happened with the always-brilliant photographer Dan Winters.

We partnered with dozens of creative icons during those years, but none were as funny, as smart, or as game for adventure as Will. And since the issue fell in the early days of WIRED’s iPad edition, we had another new kind of opportunity: the short film. Over the course of a single day, we dreamt up this cover and four interior setups, but we also created four strange short films with Will improvising the unintended consequences of jet packs, meals-in-a-pill, sexbots, and ray guns. I can’t remember a better day at work than getting to play make-believe with your favorite comedic actor. I’ve certainly never laughed as hard since.” —Scott Dadich, then creative director

“'Please don't laugh, we are recording sound.’ This was a mantra that I found myself repeating as our day with Will Ferrell unfolded. It was a unique situation for my crew and I to be in. On a typical WIRED magazine shoot, sound would not factor in, but this was the beginning of a new era in magazines. Will and I collaborated on four strange and very funny short films to run on WIRED's iPad edition. My crew had the most difficult time keeping their composure while watching Will clown around. At one point I had to ask one of them to step off-set. I love my job.” —Dan Winters, photographer

“Pari Dukovic was the only photographer we wanted to shoot this vibrant portrait of Questlove. His colors are so incredibly rich and brilliant, and his in-camera techniques make images look like they’re moving. That was absolutely necessary for the music issue! Even though this was 2014, he used 35mm film and gels to get those colors and grain. He shot around 75 rolls, I believe. He sent CONTACT SHEETS. It was so fun. This cover won a Society of Publication Design gold medal for best celebrity cover of 2014.” —Anna Goldwater Alexander, then senior photo editor

“I asked Edward Snowden the biggest question of all, ‘Are you a patriot, or are you a traitor?’ He looked just above the lens and whispered, ‘Don’t get bogged down with labels, don’t get bogged down with picking sides or picking teams, because it’s not about us versus them, or red versus blue, it’s about us coming together to solve common goals.’

I asked him if he was lonely, and he told me that loneliness can be a tragic thing, but also an empowering thing. He explained that when one has been robbed of the people one loves, there is nothing but a wall of silence. Listen to the silence and you just might hear the voices of history talking to you.” —Platon, photographer

"What I’ve always loved about WIRED is its incredible variety of cover subjects and themes. This was WIRED’s first Sex Issue. Sex is ultimately about human connection, and that was the problem we had to solve with this cover—how do we connect to our readers with the appropriate tone, especially one that celebrated the spirit of the issue.

We cycled through dozens of cover ideas: We tried everything from multiple photoshoots, to flora and fauna illustrations, to Dutch Masters paintings recreated with pornographic collages, to simple typography. But nothing felt right. The night before we were about to ship, the simple (and maybe childish) idea of the emoji hit me. It was the modern definition of human connection. Twenty-four hours later it was out the door, custom tennis-ball-yellow ink double-hit and all!” —Billy Sorrentino, then creative director

“This Work package is one of my favorite things I've worked on. The conceit we settled on wasn't the tired ‘How to achieve work-life balance,’ trope, but rather ‘How to be happy at work and happy in your personal life, because frankly it has all pretty much merged together now, hasn't it?’ Design-wise it was gorgeous, and editorially, we stuffed it full of smart, funny pieces on everything from how to work on vacation, to how to optimize your work nap, to how to use Slack. Rashida Jones was a perfect avatar for the package—she had just come off Parks and Rec I think, she was working on Angie Tribeca, she was writing a script for Toy Story ... she was buuuuusy.

So I love this cover for how bright and cheerful it is, and particularly for how it conveys Jones' crazy hard work and perfectly timed comedy. The whole day, actually, was kind of that. We shot her in the studio here, and after the shoot, she stuck around for a few hours, goofing with the staff. At one point, she was rolling around the office on one of those telepresence robot things, and she glided up behind an editor drinking an iced tea. ‘That looks good,’ she said, as the rolling screen suddenly appeared behind his shoulder. ‘Can I have a sip?’ He almost jumped out of his skin.” —Sarah Fallon, then senior editor

"Rashida Jones is a trooper, and she’s magic in front of the camera. This shoot happened in WIRED’s studio in San Francisco, and in order to get there, Rashida spent an hour sitting in morning rush-hour traffic, trying to cross the Bay Bridge. But she brushed off the commuter stress and dove right into the shoot. The proof of her professionalism? This cover is frame 53 of the 705 images we shot of her that morning!" —Art Streiber, photographer

“Former war-photographer Christopher Anderson, of Magnum, captured this frame in late July 2016, kicking off a day we spent in the West Wing with the president and his team. Christopher positioned this intimate setup right next to a window, so the president could look out on the North Lawn of the White House, the summer light creating a beautiful and painterly profile. The light is all natural—there is no spot or fills. The Secret Service wanted to know how many 'clicks’ Christopher would use—how many times he would activate the shutter. Christopher had never been asked such a question, so he estimated 50. As I recall, he ended up only needing about seven.

I love this cover for the spirit it captures in the president. The issue was guest edited by 44, and the premise was to explore WIRED and Obama's shared optimism for the possibilities of the future. To explore, as he put it, how humanity's collective ingenuity, hard work, and grit can solve problems and make tomorrow something better, something beyond our wildest dreams. I feel like in his expression you can see the seriousness and determination of that endeavor, but also the mischief and entrepreneurialism required to achieve such dreams. Technically, in magazine parlance, he's looking in the ‘wrong’ direction—to the left and without eye contact. This traditionally means he's looking backward, which, given that he had just a few months left in office, he partially was. There's no doubt, however, looking at his face, that the direction he wants to move—wants us all to move—is forward.” —Scott Dadich, then editor in chief

“This cover introduces our first fiction issue. It’s a celebration of the role of science fiction as tool of entertainment and innovation, but also a celebration of sci-fi as a method for investigating the uncertainties of the future in times of social, economical, and political transformation. We didn’t want the look to be vintage or, even worse, nostalgic. So we invited our longtime collaborator Christopher Niemann to create a fresh and unexpected cover. The result is a spectacular and memorable image, impactful for its simplicity. But the significance is clear: A mother and child are in the process of crossing through a monumental doorway. They are a few steps away from the scary pitch-black darkness. But embracing our fear is part of the process of building our dreams of tomorrow, and if we take a closer look at this cover, we realize that even the unknown is dotted with shining stars.” —David Moretti, then creative director

“How do you convey that the world is freaking out about tech? We wanted that idea, but we didn’t want it to be too dark or cliched. So creative director David Morretti decided to try something crazy-bonkers: Convey the idea in a way that’s obvious but not ominous. I ended up loving the design of this whole issue and have a big print of one Zohar Lazar image in my office.” —Nick Thompson, editor in chief

"We had been working on a few ideas for the Xbox-hackers cover, and none of them were really coming together. Then our creative director walked in and showed me the illustration, and it was just so perfect. The tone, the teenager-ness. I couldn't get over how much it nailed the story." —Maria Streshinsky, executive editor

*We did. It says "The MarkMakers."