Magazine designer who created the famous Playboy logo

Born: January 18, 1925;

Died: April 28, 2018

ART Paul, who has died aged 93, was an influential magazine designer who created Playboy's famous bunny with a bow-tie logo, which became one of the most famous corporate symbols in the world.

He was a freelance illustrator when he started working with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as the magazine's first employee in the 1950s and said he crafted the bunny logo in just a few minutes.

The logo went on to become an instantly recognisable symbol of the Hefner empire and the magazine, appearing on the cover of virtually every issue of Playboy as well as the side of Hefner's private jet and countless products.

However, Paul's influence went way beyond the famous logo. As art director of Playboy, he created an original and distinctive design and hired artists to create illustrations, including Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and Shel Silverstein. During Paul's tenure as art director, the magazine won many awards for illustration and art design and influenced the appearance of many other magazines and newspapers.

Paul, who was the magazine's art director until he retired in 1982, said he was uncertain that it would be a success.

"We didn't think it would be such a success right from the beginning, just Hefner and I putting it together," he said. "Hef was kind to me. I think I gave him a lot. He gave me a lot."

Paul was born in Chicago on January 18, 1925, and studied on scholarship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before serving in the Second World War with the Army Air Corps.

He returned to Chicago after the war and picked up studies at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Aiga, the professional association for design, said it was a testament to Paul's design acumen that the Playboy logo was universally recognised even without the Playboy name.

"Art deserves the credit for the illustrator's liberation," Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner and former chairman and chief executive of Playboy, has said. "He helped redefine the whole notion of commercial art as being able to be as well-regarded and legitimate as high art."

After his retirement, Paul continued working, including teaching and designing for magazines, advertising, television and film. He spent the last decade drawing and painting.

Paul was a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame and won many awards.

Jennifer Hou Kwong, who is completing a documentary film about the artist called Art of Playboy, said Paul changed the landscape of magazine design and layout and illustration.

Paul has been quoted as saying: "Good design principles should apply to bubble gum wrappers as well as museum posters."

Paul died of pneumonia. He is survived by his wife Suzanne Seed.