The New Yorker unveils its first animated GIF cover

It had to happen; The New Yorker unveils its first animated GIF cover that is illustrated by Christoph Niemann and aptly titled Rainy Day. He mentions in The Guardian online, “When I arrived in New York for the first time, it was pouring. Maybe that’s why, to my mind, there’s no place on earth where being stuck in traffic on a rainy day is more beautiful.” I agree with him to an extent, that there is a certain romance to rain, (songs have been made up about it, most notably Singin’ In The Rain, sung and danced by Gene Kelly).

On a visual level the haziness makes it harder to define objects, shapes and textures, colours soften in focus but exaggerate in intensity. Umbrellas are often a plethora of colours brighten up any sky, as do colours reflecting on the street. However, being stuck in a traffic jam is not so much fun, but it is a nice touch to re-think of the very first impression of the city with the first animated cover design.

I love the simplicity of the graphics, the yellow and orange of the taxi add a warmth to the gentle grey background. The blurriness of the colours certainly feels like looking through a glass window of some kind. The alluring image mesmerises the viewer as gentle randomised soft spots of raindrops fall, tear-shaped, but happy ones.

The effect of the overall design composition is twofold: it is conceptually meaningful and visually beautiful simultaneously. Obviously, the print edition is a static image, the animated GIF art is aimed at online audiences. Fans of digital art now wait with baited breath for the next edition.

The Guardian article link