The major U.S. news magazines knocked themselves out this week with designs suggesting the slide of the GOP on the political scene in Washington.
Both cover designs are loaded with symbolism which conveys meaning behind the headlines of late.
In the TIME cover, the editors have an elephant walking into darkness, exposing its dirty, flakey posterior to the viewer. Tongue in cheek? Sarcasism? You bet.
For Newsweek, designers went over the top with a superimposed manical-looking Mark Foley peering out as President Bush confidently strides below. The use of the frowning smiley, suggestive of the email icon, anchors the typographic styling.
What is interesting about ideologically motivated design is that in addition to how they can capture an audience's attention, they also tend to blow in the political breeze of perception. The design seems to follow the rhetoric steaming out of Washington with little regard to maintaining any sense of objectivity or balance.