Voting Station

George Lois

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The Resume

    (June 26, 1931-November 18, 2022)
    Born in The Bronx, New York
    Art director and ad designer
    Cofounder of the ad agencies Papert Koenig Lois (1960) and Lois Holland Calloway (1967)
    Clients included Xerox, Branff, MTV, ESPN, American Airlines, Jiffy Lube, and Tommy Hilfiger
    Designed 92 covers for Esquire magazine (1962-73)

Why he might be annoying:

    He dropped out of the Pratt Institute after one year.
    He has been caught multiple times taking credit for other people's work. (Examples include the Volkswagen 'Think Small' campaign and Nickelodeon's logo.)
    Former partner Julian Koenig said, 'His talent is only exceeded by his omnivorous ego.'
    He quipped about his 'I Want My MTV' campaign, 'It became wildly successful, but we probably destroyed world culture.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He fought with the Army in the Korean War.
    The Museum of Modern Art exhibited 32 of his Esquire covers (2008).
    The American Society of Magazine Editors chose Esquire covers he designed at #3 (April, 1968: Muhammad Ali pierced with arrows a la St. Sebastian) and #5 (May, 1969: Andy Warhol drowning in a can of Campbell's Soup) on their list of the greatest covers of the past forty years (2005).
    He said, 'In the act of creativity, being careful guarantees sameness and mediocrity.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 68 Votes: 45.59% Annoying