As for the magazine cover here, it’s surely a subtle dig at Obama. Like it’s saying black people are at the bottom in presidential candidate terms so don’t vote for them. I hope I’m reading too much into it.

I’m also surprised they didn’t try to lighten her face to make her more “acceptable” to a white audience.

Racism sucks. I hope this was just an unforseen accident and not deliberate. In real terms though, the world has more important things to think about (but thanks for bringing it to our attention Eric) such as poverty and war, you know?

It tears my heart out, but I believe that photo was intentional. It turns my stomach. That Chris Coyne (?) from the earlier post’s comments is naive to think that our societies have evolved to the point where we in the marketing/communications/design field shouldn’t have to think about these things. Sadly, we still do. I recently worked with an insurance company where I intentionally did attempt to have diversity in the photo research I did — each and every time all colored folks were taken out… and the people removing them said things like not having an “urban” audience, or not having a low-income or liberal audience, and so on… I’m thankful not to work with them anymore.

I find it disturbing that the default reaction of so many people to this discussion is so scathing.

Respect to Eric for posting about a difficult, important and deeply-unfashioanable subject.

It is in fact deliberate, but is it due to composition or ill will?

Of the two women in red, should the elder person be on the bottom?

She may be too low in the picture, it does make her seem “squeezed out” and un-natural, maybe to make some room for the pretty lady above her position? but overall the picture does spread out everyone in a pattern, tight top and gradually spaced out at the bottom, where there is a deliberate space left open to place that headline.

Lets put it this way, if she was white, there would be no potential for any subliminal message whatsoever.

If you haven’t noticed that print is dying, it’s because you’ve been getting all of your news from the internet or TV. Let me fill you in. There’s this shuffling corpse called print that has been shedding staff faster than the Titanic shed women and children. Within this corpse are other near-dead entities called staff photography and editorial process. The disgruntled photo cadaver will choose only those photos that look like other photos that the editor cadaver has approved before. The disgruntled writer cadaver never even makes it to the shoot, because he is too busy cobbling together his story from press releases, newswires, and blogs. The disillusioned editor cadaver has already written a headline and as soon as he approves a photo, he’ll be on his way to the bar. The disgruntled night editor cadaver has to contort the headline to fit on the photo and make sure that it jumps to the right page. Viola!

However, we are talking about People, so add or subtract integrity as you see fit.

Perhaps, but it certainly made the point, didn’t it?

Kurtis
“Hold on a second while I help you to wipe that mote of dust from your eye …”
or
“Ring, ring! … Hello, Pot? It’s Kettle … You’re black!”

Imagine the same portrait with Bridget and John McCain swapped. How does it look now?

Why would the photo never be composed that way? Because it was very carefully constructed, and the inferior/superior relationship would be mightily violated.

If you elide the text, it’s a much more cohesive photo. It looks like the photographer was trying to leave a block open for the headline text and that the shot was later cropped to allow room for the Britney sidebar on the right. If you imagine the whole cover being the McCain family portrait with the same text in the lower right, IMHO, it become a much more cohesive image.

But the fault still lies with the magazine’s editor/photo editor.

i feel compelled to point out that it actually could have been worse: at least the color red creates a visual connection between mother and daughter, and the headline “Meet the” starts at the daughter’s face, giving another bit of visual continuity.

I think the bigger problem with this cover for the campaign is their claims that Obama is a ‘celebrity,’ when they’re posing for the cover of freaking People magazine. Gimme a break.