Nylon April 2016 : Nicki Minaj by Matt Irwin

[Handbag Queen]

from justjared.com

 

[kokobombon]

Is this the actual cover or a preview?
It looks so good and clean for Nylon´s standars

 

[MON]

It's like an album cover

 

[Handbag Queen]

That's the cover. Layout looks much better than usual.

 

[mikel]

Very strong.

 

[narcyza]

Well, I exepted something worse. The compositsion is nice and simple.

 

[zoom]

Not even a huge Minaj fan but this is good. Hope its a new art direction for the magazine.

 

[GivenchyHomme]

The layout reminds me of style.com/print (rip).

mtv.com

 

[penny609]

Love this and makes me think Nylon is back, I mean the Nylon I used to like ten years ago or so (unlike my boss of that moment, a great eye for painting but a total jerk when it comes to photography). And Miss Minaj is just great this way, hope we'll get to see some of the contents soon.

 

[Benn98]

Is this the actual cover or a preview?
It looks so good and clean for Nylon´s standars

Apart from the redesign, I believe they also have a new EIC. The idea of Nicki Minaj for Nylon though, it doesn't was well for me. But let's see where they'll go with this.

It's odd to see nobody mentioning the aggressive retouching here. This looks like a cross between those campy Mac ads meets drag queen CGI.

 

[KoV]

I like the idea behind the cover, and Nylon was in need of an aggressively different cover from their standard. However, as Benn98 said, the photoshopping is way over the top and that works against what could have been a powerful image.

I hope I'm not being in some way ignorant, but the "what's good?" is clearly referencing the race/awards debate from last summer, that involved Miley and Taylor Swift. Nicki was disappointed in the lack of acknowledgement for black women in music. So to reference that and have her a close-up photo in which because of lighting or photoshop, her skin tone is basically that of a marginally tanned white woman, without any sign of her natural hair..... I dunno. It doesn't feel right.