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A Celebration of the Life of George Pitts

Now available for viewing on YouTube is the complete memorial service for legendary photo editor/photographer/artist/teacher George Pitts. The three-hour celebration and remembrance was held on April 2 at the Parsons New School, and featured moving and inspiring presentations by Florian Bachleda, Richard Baker, Bill Shapiro, Leslie dela Vega, Robert Newman, Emil Wilbekin, Rob Kenner, and many other friends and colleagues, as well as George's wife, Jan Pitts. In addition to the many amazing speeches, there are also plenty great pics of George, as well as a gallery of his photographs.

See a Celebration of the Life of George Pitts here.

1970s Illustrated Covers of Travel & Leisure Art Directed by Norman Hotz

[Editor's Note]: Norman Hotz began his art direction career in the late 1960s working for Allen Hurlburt and Will Hopkins at Look magazine. He moved to Travel & Leisure in 1970, where he worked as the deputy to Frank Zachary, and helped create the magazine's iconic logo and design. When Zachary left after 10 issues, the then-25 year old Hotz was named Travel & Leisure's art director. He continued and expanded on Zachary's work, creating a remarkable, award-winning series of illustrated covers and inside pages. After leaving T&L in 1976, Hotz went on to a distinguished career designing and art directing a series of magazines that included Panorama, Families, and Reader's Digest.

For the past 14 years Hotz has worked as a cartoon editor for Reader's Digest, and continues to work on design projects. In this second part of his magazine design memoir for SPD, Hotz showcases a collection of brilliant illustrated covers of Travel & Leisure, and shares some background on their creation. Don't miss the first part of this memoir, which includes Hotz's memories of working with art director Frank Zachary. This interview was conducted and compiled by Linda Rubes.

(Above): September 1974 cover of Travel & Leisure, art director: Norman Hotz, illustration: Paul Davis.
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From the SPD Archives: A Video Tribute to Amid Capeci, 2014

One of the highlights of the recent SPD For the Love of...Entertainment Weekly event was the screening of a tribute video to late EW design director Amid Capeci. Amid blazed a trail of brilliant art direction at EW, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and other magazines, and when he passed in 2012 it was a major blow to the SPD and magazine making community. Thanks to the wonderful talents of producers Heather Haggerty and Daniel Schwachter, we have this heartfelt video, featuring many of Amid's colleagues, friends, and family members remembering his amazing life and career. (Special thanks to Time Inc. Studios for help in putting this video together.)
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Mitch Shostak Remembered

BY ARTHUR HOCHSTEIN / Illustration by Sean McCabe
On June 25, 2014, the design community and a large circle of friends lost one of its favorite sons, Mitch Shostak. SPD posted something immediately, when the sad news was fresh, before there was time to reflect. This post contains remembrances from those who knew and loved him.

On September 16 from 6-8pm there will be a gathering of friends and colleagues at the School of Visual Arts Chelsea Gallery, 601 W. 26th Street, 15th Floor, in Manhattan, to celebrate Mitch's life. 

Mitch really knew how to live--his life was filled with friends, fishing trips (catch-and-release, of course), bike rides, jazz, travel, and single-malt Scotch tastings with a garrulous group. He was always at the center, the centripetal force that gathered people together. And at the center of his center was the love of his life, his wife Carolyn.

Younger SPD members may not know Mitch. Many years ago, after working at several top-tier publications, he opted to form his own studio, Shostak Studios, which designed a lot of publications that didn't have the visibility or star power of the Vanity Fairs, New York magazines, and Wireds of our world.


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Farewell to an Icon: Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

We lost a great one yesterday. Here, the design community reacts to the impact that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had on themselves and design along with a look at how magazines have covered his early death. … MORE

Steve Jobs Illustrations

Steve Jobs has been the inspiration for countless illustrated portraits over the years. Here are some of our favorites. If you've got more, let us know and we'll add them to the list.… MORE

John Lennon's 70th Birthday

October 9th marks what would have been the 70th birthday of John Lennon. To celebrate this anniversary, his solo CDs are being reissued, along with a series of compilations and box sets. There's also a new documentary, LENNONYC, on the last 10 years of his life,  and a number of other events scheduled for the next couple months. (There will be a free screening of LENNONYC in Central Park at 7p on October 9.) Rolling Stone has a nice slideshow called John & Yoko: A New York Love Story, that features a series of photographs by Allan Tannenbaum, taken in 1980. And of course we're big fans of Lennon and Ono's LP and 45 single cover designs, which can be found here.

Here are some of our favorite and most memorable John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) magazine covers. If you've got some that we missed, please let us know and we'll add them in.
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Essence 40th Anniversary Cover Mosaic

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first issue of Essence magazine, which was published in May 1970. In honor of that first issue, Mosaic Legends has recreated that first cover, featuring model Barbara Cheeseborough, in mosaic form, using all 496 covers of Essence.

Dock Ellis and the LSD No-Hitter

In June 1970, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres while under the influence of LSD (and a number of other drugs). According to Ellis, he was "high as a Georgia pine," and during the game "I started having the crazy idea that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate." Last year James Blagden created a video for New York-based clothes merchandiser No Mas, that sets an interview with Ellis to a trippy, psychedelic animation. In a game in 1974, Ellis famously attempted to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup, hitting the first three, walking the fourth (who ducked), and then being removed from the game after two throws at the head of Johnny Bench. Ellis later played for both the Yankees and Mets, and passed away in 2008 of liver disease. This video is a great legacy, and is truly a visual marvel.

Gay and Lesbian Magazine Covers

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first gay pride march, held on June 28, 1970, in New York City. Originally called the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, it was held on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village. In honor of this anniversary, we've collected a series of magazine covers featuring personalities, historical events, and publications of significance in gay and lesbian history and culture. There are 11 pictured here; see more, along with an updated cover every day during the month of June, here.… MORE

Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

May 24 was Bob Dylan's 69th birthday. That makes it a good time to look at some classic Dylan magazine covers. Here are a half dozen of our favorites, from 1962-2010.… MORE

The Newsweek Cover Legacy

We were saddened to hear the news last week that Newsweek has been put up for sale by its owner, the Washington Post. We've always been fans of the magazine, and it has a strong visual heritage, particularly on its covers. Newsweek's covers haven't been collected into an online archive like Time's, so unfortunately they're not accessible as a body of work. We dug deep into our archives and collected some of the coolest Newsweek covers from the past 50 years. Let's hope someone smart (and with a lot of money) buys Newsweek and maintains this heritage.… MORE

Meet the Fortune Art Department, 1947

What was it like to work in the Fortune art department in 1947? The obsessive Fortune online archive Full Table has a scan of an issue of Time Inc's in-house journal FYI completely devoted to answering that question. There's a photo and bio of every art department member, plus background info on how they put pages together, handle production and printing, research photographs, and much more. We find out that the staff refers to art director Will Burtin as "The Human Art Director."… MORE

Black History Month Magazine Covers

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