Esquire’s cover charge

It began in 1933 as a lad's mag of sorts, but Esquire soon had more serious aspirations. It was publishing the likes of Truman Capote and Dorothy Parker, and needed covers to match its content. So, advertising whiz-kid George Lois obliged with a run of 92 trailblazing covers dating from 1962 to 1972. He packed provocative concepts into simple but powerful composite images which would squarely confront the turbulent times and grab the public's attention; images such as Andy Warhol drowning in his own soup can, and Muhammad Ali being skewered like St Sebastian (above). And it worked - during his brief tenure the magazine's circulation soared from 500,000 to 2m.