These Dexter ads are a few years old now, but demonstrate how typography can define the “personality” of a publication.

These ads were created for Showtime’s Dexter series in 2008 to promote the premiere of its third season. Designed by Showtime’s internal creative team, Red Group, the ads ran in Details, Esquire, Interview, Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Wired, according to the New York Times.

All of the names of the magazines were replaced with the name of the series, designed in the style of the subsequent publications, and depicting a photo of actor Michael C. Hall in character as Dexter Morgan (the series’ protagonist, a serial killer).

In addition to typography, notice how details such as cropping, photography, and color work together to make each magazine instantly recognizable upon first glance. The most telling detail, of course, is the masthead (or title of the magazine), which helps to define the mood of the publication.

Graphic designer, writer and typography expert Yves Peters provided a fantastic overview of the typefaces used to recreate these mock magazine covers an article published on FontFeed here.

Can you guess which magazines these ads were published in- and what audience they are targeting based on the design elements? (Scroll to the bottom for the answers).

Click here for more inspirational articles about magazine/publication design, which is one of the many courses that Graphic Design Students study at FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

Answers: (from top, right) Esquire, GQ, Vanity Fair, US, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Interview, Los Angeles, Details, Rolling Stone.

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