George Lois, the designer behind some of Esquire’s most iconic covers (38 of which reside at MoMA), has some choice words for the magazine industry. He tells BlackBook in a lengthy rant:

“Look at Vogue. Oh my God. Vogue and Harper’s once were very well designed magazines. I mean they were exciting to look at. You could not give a shit about fashion and be excited by the whole look of the magazine. You look at Vogue now: it’s not even designed. What a difference. You pick up a Vogue back in the days of [Condé Nast’s Alexander] Lieberman and those guys, and you look at it now, and it’s a disgrace.”

How refreshing — a critique of magazines that doesn’t attack brazen use of Photoshop. Lois wishes magazines had more white space and fewer headlines on the covers. “Why do you put all those cover lines on? They say, ‘Well, if I don’t get somebody interested in this one, I’ll get somebody interested in that one,’” he adds.

“Meanwhile you go to a newstand, there’s about 200 magazines that all look the same. They got pictures of somebody — some asshole — I’ll never understand how editors and publishers think — showing just a famous person with blurbs all over their face. I’ll never understand why they think that would be something people would want to buy. I don’t get it.”

Via Legendary Designer George Lois Is Tired of Magazine Covers With Famous People and Headlines — The Cut.