Lois was born in New York City on June 26, 1931. Born to a hard working Greek immigrant family, he grew up in the Bronx where he started working in his father’s flower shop at the age of 5. Lois attended Manhattan’s High School of Music & Art, and received a scholarship to Syracuse University, although he chose to attend Pratt Institute. He attended Pratt Institute for one year before leaving, at the urging of his advertising professor, for a job in the design studio of Reba Sochis
The Pratt Insitute https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pratt-Institute
Lou Dorfsman, who created all their ads, became Lois’ mentor. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/nyregion/26dorfsman.html
Having left college, he became subject to the draft and served in the Army for 2 years in the Korean War. When he returned in 1953, Sochis wanted to make the 19 year-old Pratt junior a partner in her studio, but Lois decided to work for the CBS advertising department. CBS Radio used the agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) to place its programming ads in daily newspapers. In 1959 Lois began working at the advertising agency that would give birth to big idea thinking and the revolution of the advertising industry. Their art director, Lou Dorfsman, who created all their ads, became Lois’ mentor. His early career also brought him in contact with Sudler & Hennessy, a global health care marketing and communications organization with offices throughout the world and with Herb Lubalin, a talented designer with S&H, who excelled in poster designing, magazine designing and packaging and identity solutions.
After one year with S&H 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, created memorable campaigns for clients such as Minolta, Tourneau and The Four Seasons Additionally, he created the winning ad campaigns for four U.S. Senators: Jacob Javits (R-NY); Warren Magnuson (D-WA); Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R-PA); and Robert Kennedy (D-NY).
1961 photograph of the staff at the advertising firm of Papert Koenig Lois.
While his career has afforded him many successes it is undoubtedly his covers for Esquire magazine that are most recognized. Throughout the 1960s and 70s Lois worked with editor Harold Hayes to create over 92 covers for the magazine [1] that effectively represented some of the most notable ideas of their time. In 2008, The Museum of Modern Art exhibited 32 of Lois’s Esquire covers and installed 38 of his iconic covers in its permanent collection.
George Lois is the only person in the world inducted into The Art Directors Hall of Fame, The One Club Creative Hall of Fame, with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, CLIO, and the Society of Publication Designers, as well as a subject of the Master Series at the School of Visual Arts
Notwithstanding the respect George Lois has earned for his work, he remained a controversial figure in the advertising scene. He has been repeatedly accused of taking credit for others’ creative ideas and hard work.
Bibliography
Lois, George (2012). Damn Good Advice (for people with talent!). London: Phaidon
Lois, George, ed. (2006). Ali Rap. New York: Taschen.
References
- http://www.magazine.org/asme/top_40_covers/
- http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/72
- https://www.fastcompany.com/90167996/ad-legend-george-lois-magazine-covers-are-trash-today