'My Bizarre Harper's Cover' - George Lois/Art Director, Ad Man, Graphic Designer

ESQUIRE Magazine October 1963
Art Direction: George Lois
                
          

First there’s the entire photograph, then there’s the beauty shot – the shot of the model, framed for a fashion magazine, like a classical painting. The black hat and the white furs are designer and create contrast. The lipstick and the nail varnish are pink, vivid and glossy. This framed section of the photo is the magazine front cover shot, the Harper’s Bazaar George Lois refers to in the title, ‘My Bizarre Harper’s Cover’, published in Esquire Magazine in October 1963. Outside of the frame, the rest of the photograph is how the model looks in casual attire, tanned and active, away from the glamour, where 'real life' is located. The aqua background makes the entire image pop. American Art Director, graphic designer and ad man George Lois, photographer Art Kane and Esquire intended to expose the artifice of it all, a comment on the power of the American fashion magazine at that time. DC

'How I Taught Nixon To Use Makeup And Become President' - George Lois/Ad Man, Graphic Designer, Art Director

ESQUIRE Magazine May 1968
Art Direction: George Lois

Between 1962 and 1972, American Art Director and Madison Avenue graphic designer and ad man George Lois conceived and designed 92 front covers for Esquire, the American men’s magazine. In the new world of Sixties media, never before seen visual design and inventive copywriting made unforgettable images created by rebels. George Lois was one.  “I located this profile shot in the wire service archives and had Carl Fischer photograph the four hands, including the one wielding the lipstick”. A composite photograph published in May 1968 before Nixon was nominated for the Presidency, it refers to an era of turmoil and TV political debates won first by the televisual President JFK. It anticipates a digital age in digital photography where everything is a possibility. Mostly, I love the spray can with its light mist, the powder puff and the angle and colour of the Sixties lipstick. The lighting suggests an aeroplane. The four hands are different people and one is manicured in the best Sixties pink nail varnish for effect. Nixon is asleep but doesn’t look relaxed, about to be woken by the pink fluffy powder puff.