30 Years of British Vogue Covers

I have recently been invited by CFPR Editions to produce a limited edition print at the Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol, UK. The current edition is a 30 year colour visualisation of British Vogue magazine covers.

As the worlds most influential fashion magazine, Vogue acts as an ideal barometer for colour trends. Making use of British Vogue's own online online cover archive I use free software to extract the five commonest colours from each cover and chart them, in Illustrator, by percentage. Arranging these charts into a timeline we begin to see trends emerge - seasonal variations and also in the longer term, a gradual fashion for lighter hues.

In my 30 years of British Vogue covers visualisation each column is a year beginning with September (the start of the fashion year) at the top and working backwards to October at the bottom. 1981 is on the right and the timeline runs through to 2011 on the left.

Image from Paul Laidler's blog, Just Press P "digitally mediated artifacts and extensions of print".