Behind the Cover: October 2021

Each month, Physics Today editors explore the research and design choices that inspired the latest cover of the magazine.

Physics Today‘s third annual careers issue is devoted to private-sector careers. Two of the feature articles offer advice on climbing the corporate ladder and founding a startup . A third recounts the early history of one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies, ASM International. As was the case with its two predecessors, with this year’s cover we sought to represent some of the issue’s themes in a single illustration.

The cover was a collaboration between Berlin-based illustrator Ana Kova and Physics Today‘s art director, Donna Padian. Also weighing in were the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Charles Day; managing editor, Richard Fitzgerald; and graphic designer, Freddie Pagani.

After a discussion among the Physics Today team, Padian emailed some ideas to Kova, who responded with sketches of the following three concepts.

The team favored the first of the three, because the foregrounded figures made the cover seem more about people and their choices, and less about industry and its machines.

The cover’s bold colors and striking elements are Kova’s. The Physics Today team specified elements—such as the satellite observatory, solar panels, and wind turbines—that would make the cover look relevant to jobs that physicists in the private sector do in the 21st century.

Choosing the first concept, with the scientists front and center, meant that the three figures could not be depicted as generic humans. The Physics Today team asked Kova to highlight the diversity of the physical scientists working in the private sector. Kova met that challenge with a deft use of color and by having one figure wear a hijab.