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Earlier this year, Walter Lürzer was inducted into the German Advertising Industry’s Hall of Fame, in recognition of a decades-long career that began when he joined McCann-Erickson as a copywriter in 1965. Among the many highlights in the years that followed: Lürzer cofounded TBWA Frankfurt in 1972; established the agency Lürzer, Conrad just three years later (it merged with Leo Burnett in 1980); and founded Lowe, Lürzer in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf in the late ’80s.

"Lürzer's Archive Special: 25 Years of Lürzer's Archive."

Of course, he also launched an eponymous magazine that has become a mainstay of the advertising industry: Lürzer’s Archive, a hefty, perfect-bound collection of the world’s top ads that is published every two months. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the magazine, an extra-chunky edition of which is now on newsstands. Lürzer’s Archive Special: 25 Years of Lürzer’s Archive features interviews with George Lois, John Hegarty, Nadav Kander, Rosie Arnold, and many others.

In honor of Lürzer’s Archive’s anniversary, we asked Lürzer about how the magazine has changed over the years, what makes a good advertising photo, and whether he is as besotted with the industry as he was when he started.

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Tell me a bit about the early days of Lürzer’s Archive and how you brought it from idea to reality.
When I retired from advertising when I was 40 years old, I thought of something I was missing while I worked in advertising. Then I came up with the idea to make a collection of art-director annuals worldwide to have an overview of the advertising trends.

Most magazines that have been around as long as yours go through numerous redesigns and reworking of the content. How has Lürzer’s Archive changed over the years?
The type changed about 10 years ago, and that’s about it. Designwise, we take the backseat. Archive is meant to be about the work it features, not about presenting it in a spectacular fashion that calls attention to itself. Editorially, nothing has changed except that over the years a feature like “New Books,” in which we review books that might be of interest to our readers, has been added, or “Students Contest,” which we’ve had for five years now—basically, just an extra two-page product group in which we feature selections from the work that has been sent in by ad schools, universities, and institutions like that from all over the world. From the published entries in the Students Contest, our readers and a small jury then select the annual Lürzer’s Archive Student of the Year award.

A lot of magazines have websites but are still experimenting with how best to use the Internet to advance their brand. What is the role of Lurzer’s Archive’s website?
The online version contains all the print ad and the commercials ever published in Archive since it was founded in 1984. It’s a huge collection of advertising—and just advertising that is above average, outstanding, unusual, award winning. In addition, all the interviews with creative stars (from the areas of advertising, film, music, etc.)—one of which appears at the beginning of each issue of Archive—are also collected there.

In order to use the online version (which means accessing our search engine to enlarge the ads and to view the TV spots), you need to be an active subscriber of our magazine, so we don’t want the subscribers to only subscribe to our online version. We see it more as an add-on to our magazine.

If someone wants to submit their ad to Lürzer’s, what is the process? By what criteria does your staff make its assessments?
You can submit online and send low-res files for your campaigns (print and TV/virals), and after we select them, we will ask you to send hi-res files. The criteria are really the same as with all international ad awards: 1. Originality 2. Quality of the execution.

Some people feel that a photograph is only as good as the concept it is married to. Do you agree?
I do. We won’t publish any campaigns if there is no concept behind them. Much to the chagrin of photographers or agents submitting work, we won’t publish ads which are nothing but a beautiful photo. If we did, we would have to publish tons of fashion ads—from D&G to Prada, etc. There must be some idea behind it and preferably a good, original one.

There has been a lot of discussion in the photo industry about the rise of new technology like CGI and digital video. What role do you believe these technologies will have in the future of advertising?
Our magazine is mostly about content, about concepts, selling ideas. The technologies play an important part on the level of execution, and, of course, they are constantly changing and evolving.

The anniversary issue is more than 160 pages, which is pretty hefty, especially when most magazines these days are downright anorexic. What is your strategy for success as a publisher?
Providing a tool advertising people can use when they need it. Leafing through issues of Archive when you’re stuck for an idea for a campaign can be very useful. So I guess being useful to our readers is what we aim for and what the strategy for our success is.

What do you see as the future for magazines in general and print advertising in particular?
Well, I think something like magazines will be around for a long time, but whether it will be actually in printed form is rather doubtful.

In the “25 Years Issue,” you’ve published the replies of 25 “advertising greats” to the question, “What has been the single biggest change in advertising over the past quarter of a century?” What is your answer to that question?
The advent of the Internet, for sure, and the shift from copy-based ads to an overruling stronger emphasis on style and art direction with little “content” left.

There will be parties in Vienna and New York on September 25th to celebrate your 25th anniversary. In your editor’s letter, you note that people can also attend virtually via the Internet. Can you explain how it will work?
We want to show on our website movies from top creatives who are wishing us their greetings for our 25 years and a couple of more features which we don’t want to tell right now.

After all of these years, would you say you’re still fascinated by the advertising industry?
I must say that the current advertising industry I find a bit boring. But I did not learn anything else, so I must continue. For your comfort, I think art is boring, but I still visit museums. I enjoy more to teach advertising to young students in my profession as professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

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ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.

ART & COPY en un film que trata sobre Publicidad e Inspiración. Está dirigido por Doug Pray muestra tremendo trabajo que existe detrás de los grandes creativos de nuestro tiempo.

Es imposible no hacer una película de publicidad, la cual no muestre el tremendo impacto que ha tenido en la cultura y en toda la industria en general, explorando la revolución creativa de los ´60, donde diversos artistas y escritores sorprendieron en aquellos días con su trabajo: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney y otros aparecen en ART & COPY, quienes son los responsables de frases muy recordadas y que indudablemente pasaron a la historia,  “Just Do It”, “I Love NY”, “Got Milk”, “Think Different”, entre otras.

“The frightening and most difficult thing about, being what somebody calls a “creative person” is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from really. And especially, you don’t have any idea about where they’re going to come from tomorrow.”

>>Hal Riney, from the film Art&Copy

The most exciting part (naturally) of being a “creative person” is discovering the big one you’ve been toiling over in your head for so long.

What thinkers have to come to terms with is this never-ending thought process. On vacation, at dinner, at the movies, at the gym, at the park, going to sleep. The mind is constantly active. The mind is constantly thinking: ‘How can I put two and two together to make something special?’

What can get frustrating, but on the same token, so exhilarating is the maturation of ideas at the moment when least expected. I bet 10/10 creatives carry a notepad with them everywhere they go. Falling asleep must take forever. A conversation becomes pretty one-sided when the person talking realizes the listener is too busy musing.

George Lois: “That’s advertising, baby.”

The internet can allow those wanting to electronically paint themselves as experts and consultants on the most esoteric topics (after all…everything is just a Google search away), but occasionally, just occasionally, you’ve got to hold your hands up and concede that you were oblivious to something brilliant.One of the best movie sequences of the year this far (Yeah, last year if you’re an American… documentaries do seem to hang in distribution limbo for the longest. I know I’ve spent at least a third of my lifespan waiting for studies of a number of subjects to appear) comes twenty minutes or so into Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor’s Barney Rossett portrait ‘Obscene’ where Roy Kuhlman’s Beckett cover art is brought to life via Alex Meillier’s motion graphics and soundtracked by Jim Carroll’s ‘Falling Down Laughing.’

Please note,  Kuhlman-heads, you’re not going mad – the above images are mid-movement screen grabs from Meillier’s animations.

I won’t plead to total ignorance – I knew that Roy Kuhlman’s freeform expressionism defined Grove Press’s aesthetic in the same way that Reid Miles defined Blue Note, Berhthold Wolpe defined Faber and George Lois set a standard on ‘Esquire’. Grove’s cover art go-to seemed to be given free reign between 1951 and his departure in 1971 (passing away in 2007), and while his definitive ‘Last Exit To Brooklyn’ cover remains in circulation, added to the non-Grove Bloomsbury edition on these shores circa 2000 and the Random House edition of Samuel Beckett’s ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ retained Kuhlman’s stylish Grove-era recycle of random fonts, but the ‘Watt’, ‘Unnamable’, ‘Murphy’, ‘Molloy’, ‘Cascando’, ‘Malone Dies’, ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Proust’ covers under the Grove/Evergreen banners are classics.

The brief to illustrate Samuel Beckett’s work must be a challenge for any designer – notably, as his work descends into minimalism in the late 60s and 70s, the imagery seems to become less striking, but each piece captures the mood between the covers without becoming generic. I was weaned on some great Penguin Modern Classics editions of Beckett novels and plays, plus some weaker old Faber editions with unnatractive art. Faber’s recent recruitment of the talented a2/sw/hk crew to create a uniform cover style for Beckett’s full literary pantheon is a good move, and as a whole, the look is stunning, but standing alone, each tome is merely effective in appearance. At his best, Kuhlman afforded each cover it’s own unique identity.

Whereas this post would usually cannibalise Flickr and other easy visual e-fixes for images of Roy Kuhlman’s Beckett covers, they’re strangely scarce online, which is baffling. You can see plenty of his other Grove works, but it’s curiously unspecific. Whereas Reid, Berthold and George have comprehensive galleries in various corners of the web, many Roy retrospectives merely scratch the surface. It seems that the 2004 ‘Roy Kuhlman: The Grove Covers’ exhibition dedicated a section to his Beckett works, but any links to a hi-res collection of cover art or scans would be very welcome indeed…

Check here for the definitive online piece of Kuhlman’s Grove work. Oh, and do yourself a favour by watching ‘Obscene’…

Below is a few amassed Grove and Grove/Evergreen covers for Beckett works. Many are Kuhlman designs, though a couple may be the handiwork of other Grove design minds.

Blog post from April 2009. As an epilogue, I saw ‘Phantom Punch’ not long after I wrote this. It was okay, but I would’ve loved to have seen Friedkin’s effort.

“The statements inside (of a magazine) are useless unless there is a statement on the outside.” George Louis

Magazine covers nowadays are, for the most part, atrocious. Wandering past a newsstand, or visiting Borders is a numbing experience. As print media slowly chokes around us (only this week, Maxim UK followed its US sibling to the grave), I feel for the displaced staffers and freelancers, but I won’t mourn a few less aesthetically displeasing publications trying to lure me into a browse through an exclamation mark overdose. Wired UK relaunched after it’s ill-fated 1995-97 outing (the whole sorry saga is relayed here) and the new edition, released this month lacks the flair of its US counterpart. The Guardian featured a gallery of the original UK covers, and honestly, I’ll take a sand-faced Neil Gaiman, given the choice of that and the staggeringly obvious. Still, it’s early days.

The Magazine Publishers Of America top 40 covers of all time from 2005 is, by and large, a chasm apart from the 2008 shortlist from Magazine Week’s ‘Great Cover Debate’ (the oft ripped-off Neville Brody’s work on The Face being an exception) in which a Radio Times cover depicting a fucking Dalek was deemed an all-time great.

Esquire US has resorted to some mix and match trickery, as well as last September’s electronic trickery to lure readers in, but it’s a shadow of its former self – still, I’ll take it over the look of the UK’s edition in all it’s Monocle-lite visual blandness. Under the editorial direction of Harold T. P. Hayes between 1961 to 1973 it was groundbreaking – as described in this Vanity Fair piece from 2007, and George Lois was the visual architect. Given that this administration correlated with a golden age for heavyweight boxing, it’s unsurprising that some of the finest portraits of its practitioners were Esquire covers, and while it’s not even close to Christmas time, the ‘Sonny Santa’ of the December 1963 cover was wilfully unseasonal, but a revolutionary magazine moment in time as well as a stunning standalone image – Charles ‘Sonny’ Liston, the 24th of 25 brothers and sisters. And not an exclamation mark in sight.

‘Covering the ’60s: George Lois, The Esquire Era’ recounts the impact of the issue – “…it set the spirit of the magazine for years to come. Sports Illustrated said: “Four months after Liston won the title, Esquire thumbed its nose at its white readers with an unforgettable cover. On the front of its December 1963 issue, there was Liston glowering out from under a tasseled red-and-white Santa Claus hat, looking like the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney.” And Time magazine described the cover as “one of the greatest social statements in the plastic arts since Picasso’s Guernica.” Ho, ho, ho.”

The shoot itself, also documented in William Nack’s 1991 Sports Illustrated piece ‘O, Unlucky Man’, was according to George, fairly problematic, until Joe Louis leant a hand – “Sonny Liston was perfect for the part. By now he was known by everyone as the meanest man in the world. He was a sullen and surly champion, a “street nigger.” He had served time for armed robbery and didn’t give a damn about his image. This newest heavyweight champion of the world flaunted his surly, menacing image at a time when rising racial fever dominated the headlines. The early ’60s were the years of Freedom Rides, of Dr. Martin Luther King, of black revolution, of rising racial tensions. I was looking into the eyes of a changing America. I explained the idea of a black Santa to Liston’s advisor and idol, Joe Louis.

“That’ll be the day,” said Joe skeptically, but he went ahead and twisted Sonny’s arm. For the shooting, Carl Fisher and I went to Las Vegas, a place Liston called home because he was a notorious dice freak. We got set up in a hotel room with Carl’s photographic gear, ready to capture the Western world’s newest Santa and snapped the first shot. But Sonny wouldn’t stay put. He couldn’t resist the crap tables in the lounge. We snitched to Joe Louis. He lumbered over to Liston’s table, grabbed his ear, wrenched him around and led him back to the elevator. “Git,” he whispered in Sonny’s ear. “Git!” Bent over like a puppy on a leash, Liston returned to the room and we photographed the first black Santa to our hearts’ content.”

I don’t feel Sonny has ever been given the spotlight he truly deserved since. As with Joe Frasier, the Ali publicity machine and ‘good natured’ banter gone astray, plus a deeply problematic ‘good vs evil’ approach to these bouts, especially in subsequent documentations and accounts, has let to an opponent being misrepresented, and in the case of Liston, given the circles he ran in and his mysterious death, unfairly demonised, undermining the fact he was a fighter who would annihilate any of today’s mediocre Ring Magazine heavyweight rankings.

There’s some good studies of his life out there, shrouded in uncertainty as it was – ‘Night Train’ (published in the US as ‘The Devil And Sonny Liston’) by Nick Tosches is a hard boiled affair that focuses on the seedier side of boxing at the time. Back in 2000, William Friedkin was slated to make ‘Night Train’ into a movie starring Ving Rhames, with Friedkin promising, “this is probably the edgiest of all my films. There will be no attempt to whitewash Sonny Liston or make him more likeable.” It never happened. However, ‘Hollywood Shuffle’ and ‘The Five Heartbeats’ director Robert Townsend has wrapped a biopic called ‘Phantom Punch’ with Rhames in the lead. Never the populist choice after the Ali defeats, the film remains without a distributor.

The 2001 BBC documentary, ‘Sonny Liston: The Champion That Nobody Wanted’ and b-movie king Jeff (‘Just Before Dawn’, ‘Squirm’, ‘Blue Sunshine’) Lieberman’s ‘Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion’ documentary for HBO deserve your time. His grave (which wrongly cites his birth year as 1932, when it’s apparently somewhere between 1925-28, a mistake caused by the lack of a birth certificate – his date of death is ambiguous too) arries a simple, typically no-bullshit obituary, “A MAN” – something the media seemed to forget on the run-up to and long after his passing.

Here’s some highlight footage (including his appearance in the Monkees’ flop ‘Head’) set to James Brown’s cover of ‘Night Train’, plus the bizarre Andy Warhol and Sonny ad for Braniff in its entirety.

You cannot say ‘iconic photos’ without mentioning George Lois or the Esquire covers he created during the 1960s–Muhammad Ali, pierced with six arrows, as Saint Sebastian, a martyr to his faith; Andy Warhol drowning in his own Campbell’s Soup; Stalin’s only daughter Svetlana with a drawn-on mustache; Lt. William Calley, the man responsible for My Lai massacre, surrounded by four Vietnamese children.

In the fall of 1962, George Lois came up with an extremely controversial cover (even by his standards) for the magazine’s December 1962 featuring a blown-up photo of a soldier with the cover line: “Merry Christmas, I’m the 100th G.I. killed in Vietnam.” As the soldier, he used his own photo taken during the Korean War. The State and Defense Department decried the idea and it was never published.

One can see all of Lois’ covers and Lois’ detailed descriptions about them here.

by Ricky Powell

“Most people wouldn’t recognize good design if they tripped over it.” – George Lois

While it’s far too early in the game to make defeatist statements like “the magazines is dead” the golden age of publishing design feels long gone. A glance at the newsstand (a real newsstand, not the fancy international bookseller) can be an altogether painful experience. Most mass market magazines have all but given up on the idea of breaking new ground and even when they do it’s usually hidden between the nooks and crannies rather than on the front page.

It’s telling that when we look back at pioneering art director George Lois’ work for Esquire it seems incredibly fresh and poignant almost 40 years later.  The covers hold a special reverence given their sharp take on everything from politics to film and fashion. These were the kinds of covers that hit you with a visual punch – a woman shaving, a man applying lipstick, a college freshman facing down a giant swine -all images designed to grab your eye and catch your attention.

Lois took his Madison Avenue advertising ethos and applied it to journalism. The images weren’t always immediately understandable but they made you want to know more. Rarely does a cover today ask for anything other than that you recognize either the celebrity or the model and are willing to sift through the essay length headline text.

Taking a look at Lois’ send up of a fashion magazine cover – glamour existing only within a croped out square, real life’s plainnness outside it the full extent of his ingenueity is felt. The image inside the square is beautiful but it’s ultimately boring without it’s commonplace surroundings and controlled chaos. The soda bottle in the foreground and cigarettes in the ashtray are what make the image memorable. The unexpected touches give it depth that the admittedly “perfect” image of a well manicured woman just doesn’t have otherwise. Magazines are really missing these kinds of extra touches – we get the perfect pictures but there is nothing in them that draws us deeper.

Just got back from NYC. Spent some time at the MoMA (thanks for the member’s free pass Marci). Was inspired by George Lois: The Esquire Covers. The legendary advertising man revolutionized magazine cover art from 1962-1972 as Esquire’s Art Director. I found his designs to be instantaneously thought provoking, visually stunning, always controversial (if you have the time period in mind), and imbued with a sense of narrative.

And he did it all without photoshop. WITHOUT photoshop! In the exhibit they have the contact sheets from the Ali shoot. Without realizing it, I had assumed the arrows and blood were a post-production endeavor. Duh. No. It’s called props, make-up, lighting, performance and in-camera brilliance. Good to remember that vision is not always a matter of technology.

Lois was responsible for saving MTV with his “I want my MTV” campaign, naming Lean Cuisine, and launching Tommy Hilfiger to fame with one ad.

Below are some of my favorites of Lois’ covers included with his own commentary.

To my mind, American postwar films basically remained white-bread until a stoned Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and crew brought the biggie Hollywood studios to their knees with the cheapo, culture-crashing Easy Rider. So I gave it one. I focused on the new movies and called it “The Faith of Our Children.”

“In 1968, while [Ali] was waiting for his appeal to reach the Supreme Court, I wanted to pose him as St. Sebastian, modeled after the 15th-century painting by Castagno that hangs in the Metropolitan.  At the studio, I showed him a postcard of the painting to illustrate the stance.  He studied it with enormous concentration.  Suddenly he blurted out, “Hey, George, this cat’s a Christian!” I blurted back, “Holy Moses, you’re right, Champ!”

“Warhol was a major-league showman.  Any guy who can parlay a soup can (not to mention the Brillo box) into personal superstardom may not fit my definition of an artist but he’s certainly hot stuff.  When this article in Esquire came up, I decided to show him drowning in his own soup.   We photographed Warhol and the open can of soup separately.  When we put Andy into the soup, we almost lost him.”

**Four hours until I’m eating steak at the table I’m hosting at the Annual AFI Alumni dinner at Morton’s. It’s good to be back.**

Em 2005, a Sociedade Americana dos Editores de Revistas (ASME, na sigla em inglês) fez uma lista daquelas que seriam as 40 melhores capas de revista norte-americanas editadas desde 1965. Mostro aqui algumas delas. Para ver todas, é só ir no site da American Society of Magazine Editors.

1. RollingStone (22/01/1981) – A linda foto de John Lennon e Yoko Ono foi feita pela fotógrafa Annie Leibovitz algumas horas antes de o cantor ser assassinado. A imagem acabou sendo usada de uma forma que não era a pretendida: como capa de uma edição em homenagem póstuma ao ex-beatle.

2. Vanity Fair (agosto/1991) – O que uma boa capa não é capaz de fazer? Esta, também fotografada pela incrível Annie Leibovitz, fez mais por Demi Moore do que o filme Ghost. Sua foto nua e grávida teve tanta repercussão que não seria exagero dizer que essa capa da Vanity Fair ajudou a alçar a atriz ao primeiro time de Hollywood, status que levou um bom tempo para ser perdido.

3. Esquire (abril/1968) – Uma capa polêmica para um assunto polêmico. O pugilista Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) havia se recusado a servir ao Exército americano - o que é contra a lei – em plena Guerra do Vietnã, por questões religiosas. Como represália, ele foi impedido de lutar e perdeu seus títulos de campeão. Esta capa da Esquire, idealizada pelo designer George Lois, expunha o lutador flechado como São Sebastião, santo que, além de ser padroeiro dos atletas, morreu por ter se mantido fiel a sua crença. Imagine o tamanho do escândalo nos anos 1960: uma revista de prestígio defendia a deserção do Exército mostrando em sua capa um negro muçulmano que imitava um santo católico!

5. Esquire (maio/1969) – O artista plástico Andy Warhol topou aparecer numa capa irônica, que alardeava um suposto declínio da arte de vanguarda nos EUA. Representante máximo da vanguardista pop art, Warhol aparece afundando numa lata de sopa Campbell, um dos mais famosos ícones de sua obra. De quebra, o artista ainda se mostrava totalmente despido do glamour que sempre o cercou no mundo dos ricos e famosos. A direção de arte também é de George Lois.

6. The New Yorker (24/09/2001) – A capa parece totalmente vazia, exceto pela logo, mas repare bem: a silhueta das torres gêmeas do World Trade Center está lá. É como se, mesmo no vazio, elas continuassem sendo vistas, como um fantasma ou uma memória que não se consegue deixar para trás. A revista saiu poucos dias após a destruição dos prédios. O trabalho é de Art Spiegelman, inspirado na obra de Ad Reinhardt e editado por Farnoise Mouly.

7. National Lampoon (janeiro/1973) – Esta é a capa mais famosa da lendária revista de humor. A chamada diz: “Se você não comprar esta revista, nós vamos matar este cachorro”. Foto de Ronald G. Harris.

8. Esquire (outubro/1966) – Esta capa vai contra a idéia de que uma imagem vale mais que mil palavras. A reportagem em questão tinha 33 mil palavras, a mais longa da história da Esquire, e ajudou a mudar a opinião pública americana em relação à Guerra do Vietnã. A matéria, escrita por John Sack, é um dos marcos do New Journalism (novo jornalismo). A chamada diz: “Oh, meu Deus, nós acertamos uma garotinha.”

10. National Geographic (junho/1985) – A foto, feita por Steve McCurry, é uma das mais famosas de todos os tempos. Ela mostra o medo estampado nos incríveis olhos azuis de uma menina de 12 anos, refugiada que vivia em condições miseráveis num campo na fronteira do Afeganistão com o Paquistão. Na época, a União Soviética guerreava contra o Afeganistão, que era apoiado pelos EUA. Como se sabe, o feitiço virou contra o feiticeiro em 11 de setembro de 2001.

11. Life (30/04/1965) – Antes da publicação dessa edição da Life, repleta de fotos impressionantes feitas por Linnart Nilssons, o mundo não sabia exatamente como era um feto dentro de um útero. O que aparece na capa tinha 18 semanas de gestação. As discussões pró e contra o aborto nunca mais foram as mesmas. O livro de Nilssons com esta e outras fotos vendeu oito milhões de exemplares em apenas quatro dias.

12. Time (08/04/1966) – “Deus está morto?” É a pergunta feita pela Time numa capa sem foto ou ilustração alguma. Na reportagem, diversos estudiosos e teólogos anunciavam a ausência de Deus na vida das pessoas e a morte da religião. Imagine a reação dos leitores americanos.

13. Life Edição Especial (1969) – Esta edição histórica mostrava e contava tudo sobre a chegada da Apollo 11 na Lua. Na capa, o astronauta Buzz Aldrin, fotografado pelo colega Neil Armstrong. A revista traz imagens que marcaram a história da Humanidade e influenciaram a cultura.

15. Harper’s Bazaar (abril/1965) – Esta capa, que mostra a modelo Jean Shrimpton usando um simulacro de capacete espacial cor-de-rosa, foi fotografada por Richard Avedon e é um dos ícones dos anos 1960.

16. The Economist (10-16/09/1994) – Quem poderia imaginar que algum dia a mais renomada revista especializada em economia traria em sua capa uma foto de dois camelos em plena cópula? Foi a imagem que The Economist escolheu para alardear sua matéria sobre o lado ruim da fusão entre empresas.

17. Time (21/06/1968) – A ilustração é de Roy Lichtenstein. Um revólver fumegante apontado para o leitor alertava para a necessidade urgente de regulamentar a compra e a venda de armas nos EUA. Martin Luther King e Robert Kennedy tinham acabado de ser assassinados. Até aquele momento, por incrível que pareça, nenhuma lei americana impedia que armas fossem compradas por menores de idade, deficientes mentais ou criminosos. O Congresso mudou isso naquele mesmo ano.

20. Blue (outubro/1997) – Esta capa é um clássico do designer David Carson, feita para a edição inaugural da revista Blue, voltada para pessoas com espírito de aventura.

21. Life (26/11/1965) – “A dura realidade da Guerra do Vietnã”. Com essa chamada e a foto de um prisioneiro vietcongue vendado e amordaçado, a revista Life ajudou a mostrar aos americanos que aquela guerra não era exatamente como todos pensavam. A foto foi feita por Paul Schutzers.

24. Interview (dezembro/1972) – Esta edição de Natal da Interview trazia Andy Warhol, fundador da revista, fotografando a modelo (e futura cantora) Grace Jones.

25. Time (14/09/2001) – Outra grande capa sobre os atentados terroristas de 11 de setembro de 2001. A capa da Time, com fotografia de Lyle Owerkoof, não precisava de chamada. Era impossível alguém nos EUA não saber do que se tratava.

29. Playboy (outubro/1971) – Fundada em 1953, a revista Playboy esperou até 1971 para estampar uma mulher negra em sua capa pela primeira vez. A escolhida foi Darine Stern, fotografada por Richard Fegley numa cadeira com o formato do coelhinho símbolo da publicação.

29. Fortune (01/10/2001) – O 11 de Setembro rendeu várias ótimas capas. Outra delas foi esta da Fortune sobre as conseqüências financeiras do ataque terrorista. A foto, que mostra um executivo sobrevivente da queda das torres gêmeas, é uma das mais famosas da tragédia.

36. People (15/09/1997) – Esta foi a última das 52 capas que a revista People dedicou à princesa Diana ao longo de sua existência. A ex-mulher de Charles era garantia de vendas para a publicação, especializada em bisbilhotar a vida de celebridades. Foi nessa roda-viva que Diana morreu, e a People explorou sua imagem pela última vez com uma capa bastante elegante, fora de seus padrões.

37. National Geographic (outubro/1978) – Mais impressionante do que ver um gorila empunhando uma câmera fotográfica na capa de uma revista é descobrir que tal foto é, na verdade, um auto-retrato, feito pelo próprio animal diante de um espelho e com ótima qualidade técnica. A reportagem de capa tratava de recentes descobertas sobre a capacidade lingüística dos gorilas.

George Lois, icon maker.

I was listening to an interview with famed art director, George Lois on AdAge.com. Among the many interesting things he said, one comment stood out. Lois was addressing the art of magazine covers, something he was famous for. The subject came around to which magazines he thought were doing covers right. Despite abhorring the New Yorker’s Barack & Michelle Obama cover for “unintentionally misleading a lot of dumb voters,” Lois spoke flatteringly of the magazine.

a notorious cover, an iconic format.

He recalled a recent conversation with its Editor-In-Chief, David Remnick. Remnick had asked him if maybe the New Yorker should move away from illustrated covers and explore photography. Aghast, Lois told him he’d better not. “You own the cartoon cover! Why on earth would you walk away from it?”

His comment stopped me because it reminded me of various examples in my career when some of my most famous clients wanted to walk away from the advertising campaigns that had made them so famous!

Heinz Ketchup (or do you say catsup?) for example. The iconic brand was seriously considering a departure from the “Anticipation” type advertising it had made for years. Who doesn’t remember the rework of Carly Simon’s huge hit? It turned the products biggest negative (takes too long to pour) into a monster benefit: slow equals best. With “Anticipation,” the brand’s eminence had reached its zenith.

And now Heinz wanted to change all that. They had some research saying teens were uninspired by the slow pour approach. Most of us at Burnett decried their passion for change. The debate became fear-driven. Do we walk away from what we know is the brand’s signature attribute or risk pissing off the client by sticking to our guns?

The solution became a gang-bang, in which all bases would be covered. Long story short, yours truly won this battle royal and, happily, Heinz stayed on point with a rework of the old cliché: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait. “Rooftop” was the signature spot in this campaign, and would get me my first Gold Lion at Cannes. It didn’t hurt Matt LeBlanc’s acting career either!

Ten years later, same agency, Maytag began questioning the efficacy of their long-running and beloved “Lonely Repairman.” They had research showing “dependability” was less relevant to today’s customer than style and performance.

Good God! I remember telling them that they could not create the Lonely Repairman today even if they wanted to. The message was too powerful. Implying their machines NEVER broke down would be illegal. That they wanted to move off this strategy was insane.

While mistakes were made, thankfully, Maytag held on to dependability and the Lonely Repairman.

same icon, new repairman.

We often talk about change in the ad game. With a new CMO comes change. With flat sales. With a new agency. Like in politics, change is always perceived as improvement.

But it’s not. Lois’s statement about the New Yorker is dead on. Hopefully, my examples are valid as well. How about you, Gentle Reader? Have you any examples to share?

When I was a kid there was one Superman comic story in which Clark and Lois are at a fair of the future.  The food at the fair fulfills you just by smelling it.  (It kills you if you eat it.)  The concept was awesome.  Sniff your way to a full stomach.

The current issue of Esquire has similarly broken a barrier with a streaming video cover using “electronic ink.”  Here’s the story.  The words “The 21st Century Begins Now” flash up, one word following the other until you have the full message.  Other brands have been experimenting with similar displays.

While I find this, and the story behind it, amazing. It also makes me wince to know that in a fairly short time, going shopping is going to be a surreal experience beyond anything Dali could whip up.

Those wretched little elves will be dancing while you listen to the sounds of Rice Krispies going snap, crackle, pop.

The boisterous Tony the Tiger will be shouting “They’re Greeaat!” from his box, no doubt royally pissing off the elves.

The beautiful girl on the L’Oreal hair coloring package will wink at you seductively (or has Sara Palin destroyed the wink forever?)

A tip to Chiquita Banana: Set the Chiquita girl’s hips in motion and watch banana sales to soar.  People will make the connection.

A design waiting to come to life: A pickle wriggling to an ethnically correct tune, waving its little pickled arms and calling out, “I’m kosher!”

Viagra: The animation on your display is a no-brainer.  I figure about a three-second animation with continuous loop will imprint the brand’s unique position in a pretty permanent way.

And there will be a day when we design viewbooks with streaming type, moving students and some poor male and female smiling at the viewer and saying, actually saying, “visit our website at . . . .”

Fellow PR folks, marketers, designers and advertisers, Esquire is just the beginning.

Give me your thoughts.  What’s the wildest — or best — use you can think of electronic ink and motion-filled display boxes or cans?

Bonuses!

For folks who love the ad world, here’s an interview with legendary designer George Lois, a former designer for Esquire and his feelings about the cover.  It’s worth your time.  He covers 50 years of ad/art history and stresses being knowledgable in many fields outside art for inspiration.

While doing the research for this blog I came across the original Chiquita Banana commercial.  It’s way too good to miss.

George Lois Also Has Choice Words for The New Yorker and Ad Age

Video Report

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Legendary magazine and advertising designer George Lois doesn’t think much of Esquire’s recent attempt to promote the battery-powered cover of its October issue as the start of a new age. He said that as a former Esquire art director he was “embarrassed” by the “silly gimmick” that was not in keeping with the publication’s stature. In a video interview with Ad Age media reporter Nat Ives, Mr. Lois also had some similarly critical things to say about The New Yorker as well as his own relationship with Advertising Age.

FULL ARTICLE

‘Recession-Resistant’ McD’s Forges Ahead With Menu, Store Changes Fast Feeder Reports Healthy Earnings, but Acknowledges ‘Interesting Times’ for Franchisees

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — McDonald’s Corp. CEO Jim Skinner took great care during an earnings call Wednesday to paint his company as recession-resistant and tout its franchisees’ access to credit.

FULL ARTICLE

Celebrity of any kind – pop culture or designer – has never interested me. I continue to be befuddled by the billion dollar celebrity industry and its zombie-like subscribers. Now we even have celebrities whose only claim to celebrity is being a self-proclaimed celebrity. Fortunately, I don’t believe we’ve seen a designer grace the cover of the likes of a People magazine – though I may have to exclude fashion designers here. They are a different breed of designer altogether. But in recent years we have seen a handful of graphic designers come close to attaining that status.

In my years as a design practitioner I have had encounters with a handful of designers who inhabited this elevated strata. Most of the meetings were unremarkable but the first one has stayed in my memory, when not much stays there these days. My first brush with a design hero was with Lou Dorfsman. Lou was already a giant in design at the time and has since been celebrated many times over for his great achievements and contribution to design. He spent most of his career as the head of design at CBS. His work at CBS and his collaboration with his good friend Herb Lubalin are duly recorded in graphic design’s history books.

I arrived, as a design intern, at Lou’s CBS design department in New York in the winter of 1986. Naturally I was very curious to see and meet this legend, but several weeks went by when I would only hear staff designers say things like “Lou, didn’t like that” “Lou OK’d it the last time” “what do you think Lou would say”, but no sight of Lou. I learned later on that he traveled a lot, and he was in Japan at the time.

And then it happened. One day as I was passing by his office, his secretary handed me a note. It was one of those ‘From the Desk of’ type of note papers. It had his name on it (set in Firmin Didot, of course). And on it, scrawled in red crayon: “I want to see this person.” He’s here and he wants to see me. Me?! Wow. As part of the internship you got to have your student work reviewed by Lou. The protocol was you dropped of your portfolio in his office and he would see it when he could and comment on it either in person or in a note. Evidently he had seen my portfolio. His desire to see me was to compliment or chastise me? Either way a meeting with him was in the offing.

Then it didn’t happen. Several times I tried to get to see him and he was unavailable. He was in meetings, out of the office, at lunch, busy, busy, busy.

Then it happened. In the most unlikely of places: In the restroom on the 35th floor of the CBS building – The Black Rock – between 52nd and 53rd Street on 6th Avenue. I was standing at the urinal doing my business when in walks the man and parks himself right next to the urinal I was occupying. And in a cheery, booming baritone said: “Hi there young man, how’s it going?” This started a brief conversation whilst relieving ourselves in unison. I returned the greeting and then mentioned his note that I had received just the other day. He said he remembered my portfolio and was very complimentary. He also said that he wished he could hire me here at CBS but unfortunately they were in a hiring freeze, but he promised to call his friends in the city and ask them to see me. Wow, Lou was going to call his friends for me?

Later on, after I had moved on from CBS I came to learn that the design department that Lou had built there was being dismantled as a result of the takeover of CBS by the Tisch’s. The corrosion to the Tiffany network was starting to happen just as I had arrived at CBS. And soon Lou himself was gone from CBS.

Sadly, I never did get a call from Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, George Lois, Herb Lubalin or any of Lou’s friends. I never seriously expected to. But his offer to do so buoyed my spirits and hopes for many, many months following that fateful restroom encounter. For a young person like myself struggling to launch a career in a rough city like New York that helps a lot. Never before, or since have I walked out of a public restroom feeling so light. In 1978, Lou Dorfsman was honored with the prestigious AIGA Medal. In 1986, I had the distinct pleasure of sharing a pee with this design legend.

‘George Lois: The Esquire Covers’ is currently on exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.  George Lois was Art Director for Esquire Magazine from 1962-1972, and although the exhibit is small it packs a heavy punch.  Lois changed the face of magazine cover design with visually striking images and simple layout, covering politically controversial topics such as race, gender, and the war in Vietnam.  Included in the exhibit are seven original artworks paired with copies of the final covers, a display case with negatives and contact sheets from the April, 1968 issue featuring Muhammed Ali, and 24 covers spanning the decade Lois worked for the magazine.  The exhibit is up until until March 30, 2009.

To hold the tide until I get some proper time to catch up with Soul Tableaux, Michael McDonald’s Adventures and other lengthier, worthier things, here are some of the things just thinging it up out there.

For all you budding George Loises out there, have a good old tinker with Esquire’s cover.

Dieter Rams’ 10 design commandments. Thou shalt have a wee look here.

Kurt Vonnegut reviews a dictionary.

Estate agent falsehoods go digital.

“Inaccessible oil tanks? Balls to that, let’s get some art down there“, a person has clearly said.

And while you’re down there…

Every Moviedrome movie listed, so you can check if you actually did see that movie about that weird thing that one time, or if you dreamt it in a feverish mumpsy state as a nipper.

Jack Handey has some ideas for paintings you could paint. You probably shouldn’t though.

Like postboxes? Like knowing where they are? Boy, are you in for a treat. Needs more info though, so get stuck in.

Reducing movies to little itty bitty bits.

And saving the best until last, the Ladybird Book of the Policeman.

Lots and lots of news, so I’m posting before the holiday weekend eats all our brains.

I just found this great interview with Christina Hendricks from June 28. My favorite part is that she doesn’t realize that Joan speaks in a higher voice than she does in real life. How funny!

The New York Post has a cloyingly written, but highly favorable, review of the first couple of episodes of season 2 (hat tip to Basketeer dansj).

When we return (or by the second episode, at any rate), it’s March 1, 1962, the day that John Glenn got a ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan and an American Airlines plane with 70 people aboard crashed after takeoff into Jamaica Bay…

(So my fervent prayer is that they work in one of the singularly worst advertising campaigns of all time – a 1960s airline commercial with singing wives begging, “Take Me Along If You Love Me.” Legend has it that many husbands took the opportunity to get free tickets for their mistresses and secretaries instead. Tragically, the airline then wrote thank you notes to the wives for being taken along… )

Without giving anything away, we also learn that the dreadful Peter wasn’t thrown into the street for trying to blackmail Don and we learn what happened to Peggy’s pregnancy …

Jossip has a funny post up called When Will the Mad Men Backlash Commence?

Critics, too, loved Lost; then they spent a year beating the crap out of its writers before finally coming around again. Rinse and repeat for Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy and Prison Break.

No backlash from Newsweek, which calls Mad Men “must-see TV.”

More high-profile DVD reviews come from The Washington Post, which understands the series, and uses the word “wanton” (which is one of my favorite words), and from Variety, which calls Mad Men an “unguilty pleasure.”

Brandweek gives us more details of some innovating advertising. I particularly like…

TV ads will make up the bulk of the marketing for Mad Men, AMC’s first original show, with a mix of network and cable buys. A 30-second spot also will run in Landmark Theaters, which cater to art house devotees who’ve been the Mad Men early adopters.

There will be some high-profile stunts and outdoor ads that look to spur water cooler chatter. The shuttles between Grand Central Station and Times Square in New York will become Mad Men set pieces, with the interiors decorated to evoke Draper’s early 1960s world of men in fedoras and martinis with lunch. The cars will have “chandeliers” on the ceilings, snappy lines of dialogue on the walls and life-size images of Draper himself appearing on the commute.

People in period costumes (think: lots of pencil skirts) will roam around Grand Central Station vogueing with cigarettes and handing out cards that say Sterling Cooper, the fictional ad agency on the show.

MetroLife, a British site, gives a short, favorable (or favourable) review to the DVD set, but UK Basketcase Helen tells us that the R2 DVDs are skimpy compared to the US version.

Television (and Mad Men) blogger Alan Sepinwall has a cut-above-the-rest DVD review in the New Jersey Star Ledger. This is one of the few reviews that goes past being excited and thrilled, and digs into exactly what works and doesn’t work about the commentaries, extras, and packaging.

And after a while, all the talk of the show’s brilliance almost gets in the way of the actual brilliance, as if Weiner and company are giving you the hard sell for a product that doesn’t really need it. Weiner’s mentor, “Sopranos” creator David Chase, always hated doing DVD commentaries, or in any way attempting to explain what was there on the screen for people to interpret. While that approach could be frustrating for the most hard-core “Sopranos” fans who might have occasionally liked a clarification, there’s so much information and praise overload on the “Mad Men” set that I began to understand Chase’s less-is-more approach.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also points out that the tie-in commercials and the original “Making of” features from AMC would have been nice extras to include.

Vue Weekly gives us, in the guise of a DVD review, a thoughtful look at the women of Mad Men, and the way that the show distinguishes itself from boy’s clubs like The Sopranos and The Wire (don’t shoot me—I’ve never seen either one, I’m just quoting the article) by having a strong female focus.

A gossip piece in Forbes is smarmy and strange, but is interesting about the “real mad men”—George Lois, Della Feminia, et al.

Here’s an interview with Elisabeth Moss in IF Magazine on her Fear Itself role (it airs tonight at 10 on NBC). They promise Part Two will be about Mad Men.

AMC is allowing that the beginning of season 2 in 1962 is officially leaked, and has posted a 1962 trivia quiz on their Mad Men blog. (I scored 11/15).

As mentioned in our reporting on the New York Times article, JWT will have a ten-second advertisement inside the new DVD release. Here’s an article about that, complete with cool picture, from Brandweek.

Media Bistro has an amusing take on George Lois and the Times Magazine article.

We confess that we watch each episode twice, once with the sound on and then again on mute, so as to better contemplate the stellar sets, vintage props, and bold-hued womenswear…

DVD Reviews abound! Why oh why didn’t we get a review copy? Sniff. Why oh why haven’t I got my contest prize yet? SNIFF! (I got a note from AMC on June 27 that my contest-prize DVD is in the mail. So yay. But sniff.)

Overwhelmingly positive reviews can be read at:

• TV Squad,
• DVD Talk,
• Red Orbit,
• The Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul,
• NewsOK.com from The Oklahoman,
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio.com)

Hollywood Reporter did a roundtable (on June 3, but I didn’t see it until hullaballoo pointed it out) of showrunners on how they dealt with the WGA strike and other things. Matt Weiner is one such showrunner.

Movie Web is thrilled with “10 new photos” of season 2. They all seem to be the ones we had a month ago. But maybe I’m confused, because no matter what I click, I only see 3 photos.

AfterEllen.com has a juicy article on Mad Men’s women, including Carol, which mentions both the Times article and the DVD release.

Watching Peggy move from secretary to lead character Don Draper, to a woman with her own secretary at the end of the first series’ 13-episode run, was possibly one of the most satisfying arcs I have ever seen for a female character.

The article’s author doesn’t realize Joan was being snarky when she said Peggy would have a secretary. Nonetheless, the character arc is pretty damn amazing.

I live in suburban New York, but a Mad Men fan in LA reports seeing a Mad Men billboard. Yippee!

I’m not going to mention the gazillion articles that mention that Mad Men is officially on the Emmy shortlist, because it was enough weeding through them looking for real news. But it’s worth noting that the TV Decoder of the New York Times has a column thinking over each show’s chances.

A 16-page July Preview section of Entertainment Weekly mentions Mad Men’s ratings war with Burn Notice, but doesn’t give Mad Men its own page, which confuses me.