My 2 cents on the Harper's covers

I had a great time looking at Harper's magazine while working on the paper and I must say I was delightfully surprised that at one point the magazine did attempt to do something more interesting and creative than what they have now. After looking at the some of the magazines that Kate, Kristin and Rob talked about today from the earlier eras, I am surprised that Harper's only decided to make use of color and bolder illustrations almost 10-20 years later. I thought it was really interesting that for a "serious" and "traditional" magazine like Harper's to experiment and try out a variety of designs in the 50's and for the ensuing 40 years or so. I think most of the magazines we talked about in class today have sort of developed an identity and style and became better at their designs. I am not sure I can say that for Harper's; while its really clean and formatted, I feel it lacks a punch. It's probably not something I'll ever pickup from the newstand unless there is a topic I need to do research on and they happen to have it.