About the artist:

George Lois (born June 26, 1931, in the Bronx, New York City) is an American art director, designer, and author. Lois is perhaps best known for over 92 covers he designed for Esquire magazine from 1962 to 1972. In 2008, The Museum of Modern Art exhibited 32 of Lois' Esquire covers. Lois was born in New York City on June 26, 1931, the son of Greek immigrants. Lois attended the High School of Music and Art, and received a basketball scholarship to Syracuse University, although he chose to attend Pratt Institute. Lois attended only one year at Pratt, then left to work for Reba Sochis until he was drafted six months later by the Army to fight in the Korean War. After the Korean war, Lois went to work for the advertising and promotions department at CBS where he designed print and media projects. In 1959 he was hired by the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach. After one year there, Lois was recruited by Fred Papert and Julian Koenig to form Papert Koenig Lois in 1960. PKL, as it was known, was also the first advertising agency to ever go public. In 1967 he left to form Lois, Holland, Callaway. His last agency, Lois/USA, which created memorable campaigns for clients such as Minolta, Tourneau and The Four Seasons, ended its run in 1999. In 1968, Lois obtained the coveted Braniff International Airways account. Here he formulated the revolutionary "When You Got It, Flaunt It" Campaign for the airline that resulted in an 80 percent increase in business as a result of the new advertising. Lois incorporated a series of memorable and unique television commercials that paired unlikely celebrities as Andy Warhol and Sonny Liston sitting on Braniff aircraft seats discussing unique and unlikely subjects. Lois developed what he called "The Big Idea".[5] He has claimed to have created the “I Want My MTV” campaign; helped create and introduce VH1; named Stouffer's Lean Cuisine frozen food line; and developed marketing and messaging for Jiffy Lube stations. He created the initial advertising campaign to raise awareness of designer Tommy Hilfiger. Other clients have purportedly included: Xerox, Aunt Jemima, USA Today, ESPN[6] and four U.S. Senators: Jacob Javits (R-NY), Warren Magnuson (D-WA), Hugh Scott (R-PA), and Robert Kennedy (D-NY).[citation needed] Lois and Jerry Cotts directed the music video for Bob Dylan's song "Jokerman." In comments about Mad Men, a television drama that aspires to depict the advertising industry he worked in, Lois summarized his experiences of the times: "Mad Men misrepresents the advertising industry of my time by ignoring the dynamics of the Creative Revolution that changed the world of communications forever...That dynamic period of counterculture in the 1960s found expression on Madison Avenue through a new creative generation—a rebellious coterie of art directors and copywriters who understood that visual and verbal expression were indivisible, who bridled under the old rules that consigned them to secondary roles in the ad-making process dominated by non-creative hacks and technocrats...It was a testy time to be a graphic designer like me who had the rage to communicate and, to create icon rather than con. And, unlike the TV Mad Men, we worked full, exhausting, joyous days: pitching new business, creating ideas, "comping" them up, storyboarding them, selling them, photographing them, and directing commercials." Lois is the only person inducted into all of the following: The Art Directors Hall of Fame, The One Club Creative Hall of Fame, with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Society of Publication Designers, as well as a subject of the Master Series at the School of Visual Arts. He is also in the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame. He and other notable advertising alumni of his era are the subject of the movie Art & Copy. Awards Art Directors Hall of Fame: 1978 Advertising Hall of Fame Advertising Age magazine "100 Most Influential Advertising Practitioners of the Twentieth Century". Copywriters Hall of Fame AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Gold Medal: 1996 Society of Publication Designers Herb Lubalin Award Winner: 2004