The best cover designs from American Shipper’s 1980s magazine issues

The global shipping publication American Shipper launched in 1974 with the goal to serve the needs of all players involved in international shipping, providing important information to shippers, carriers and third parties.

Founded by late maritime journalist David A. Howard, the magazine began as the Florida Journal of Commerce until Howard saw a need for a national publication focused on shipping. He relaunched the publication as American Shipper in May 1974. This was decades before the internet would take the publishing world by storm, so American Shipper was a monthly printed magazine for all things international shipping.

FreightWaves acquired American Shipper in 2019, and it serves the global shipping industry to this day — now in a digital capacity.

There is something to be said about the efficiency and convenience of online journalism, but what is lost are the creative and enticing cover images that beckon readers to open print publications’ pages. FreightWaves manages the archives of American Shipper and each week posts an article from the early days of the magazine as a flashback. In these archives, beautiful, funny and sometimes just plain weird cover images start off each issue.

We’ve compiled some of our favorites from the 1980s, the second decade of the publication in its print form.