SPY Magazine
A dream job Before starting our firm, Alex served as the Art Director of the smart, fun, funny, fearless — and influential and much-missed — Spy magazine.
“It’s pretty safe to say that Spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s. It might have remade New York’s cultural landscape; it definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism. It was cruel, brilliant, beautifully written and perfectly designed, and feared by all. There’s no magazine I know of that’s so continually referenced, held up as a benchmark, and whose demise is so lamented.”
— Dave Eggers
“It’s a piece of garbage“
— Donald Trump
For an April Fool’s issue, we used a double cover; the second cover fell apart. A hint of things to come?
Spy was designed on a tight budget; a lot of each issue was printed using only two colors, and we had to rely on the use of stock and paparazzi photographs for imagery. As a result, the designs relied heavily on typography to help advance the narrative.
Life highlights? Getting to meet both Grampa and Uncle Miltie. Neither disappointed.
Art Director
Alexander Isley
Designers
Alexander Knowlton
Sonda Andersson-Pappan
Deborah DeSteffan
Catherine Gilmore-Barnes
Michael Hoffman
Recognition
Gold and Silver Medals,
Society of Publication Designers
Collections
The Herb Lubalin Study Center
of Design and Typography
Special Collections Research Center
NC State University Libraries
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Museum of Modern Art Library