These covers have been doing the rounds for a while now (they were catalogued on The Moment blog to celebrate the New York Time Style Magazine's fifth anniversary last month) and I'd been meaning to post about them myself, but with holidays and just being generally busy I'd just not managed to get round to it.

I'd never come across the magazine before, living in London I don't get to see the New York Times too frequently. I was astonished at the quality of the covers, both the concepts and executions are just first class. The crop circle, cherry pie and sushi being my personal favourites.

It would seem that different artists are commissioned for each cover and given free reign over what they produce, a commendable way of working. That approach kind of echo's what I was talking about in my Spike Jonze post; artists left to get on with seeing through their idea without unnecessary interference will produce more inspiring and memorable work than is possible with design (or film in Jonze's case) by committee.

Anyhow, thought it would be nice to collect my favourite covers in one place and this seemed like as good a way as any of doing it. Kind of makes me wish London had an equivalent; a newspaper that really represented the city and the people who live here that also valued design as being an important part of doing the job. I guess in the UK we have The Guardian, which is undoubtedly amazingly designed and (in my humble opinion) generally well written, but that's from Manchester so I better not go claiming it for London!