Incredible Cover of Boston Magazine Made of Shoes Worn in the Marathon Another great design born of tragedy By Tim Nudd

The stunning May cover of Boston magazine features a photo of shoes worn in this year's Boston Marathon, arranged in a heart shape. "We will finish the race," says the cover headline. Tragedies often bring out the best in magazine designers. Other notable Boston Marathon covers include those from The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated. And then, of course, there was the incredible Hurricane Sandy coverof New York magazine.

UPDATE: The back cover of the magazine is pretty great, too. (See below.) The magazine has also posted a blog item about the cover. An excerpt:

Our design director, Brian Struble, and deputy design director, Liz Noftle, came up with the concept of taking shoes worn during the marathon and arranging them so that the negative space is in the shape of a heart. … I knew as soon as I heard the idea that we had our concept—not just for the collection of essays, but also for the cover. In fact, I quickly realized that the stories of the runners who wore those shoes would be even more powerful than the essays we'd commissioned. We quickly changed course and settled on the cover concept and the outlines of a feature package: We'd shoot the shoes collectively to form the heart, but we'd also photograph them as individual pairs to illustrate the stories told by the runners in the package (which we called "The Shoes We Wore," and which you'll find in the May issue).