About that 'Planet Hillary' NY Times cover...

Credit: New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine caught the Internet's attention Thursday when it released the cover of its latest issue, which features former State Secretary Hillary Clinton's face superimposed on a sphere in space. "Planet Hillary," read the headline.

We half-heartedly entertained one theory on where the inspiration for the cover came from.

In a blog post at the Times, Arem Duplessis, director of the magazine's design, explains the real process that went into it:

When we created the cover of this Sunday's magazine to accompany Amy Chozick's article about Hillary Rodham Clinton's influence on the various people within her political universe, the immediate idea that came to mind was Clinton's face embedded on a planet. ...

At first we were going to put faces on celestial bodies orbiting around her, but it felt like overkill. Instead, we added other galactic elements, and then Lauren Kern, one of our deputy editors, who was in constant conversation with us about the evolution of the cover, came up with the language (e.g., "The Chelsea Quasar" and "Huma's Dark Matter") that would surround "Planet Hillary."

The original sketch for the cover was like this:

Credit: New York Times Magazine