Magazines are my first love. After brief stints at Esquire and Details I had the good fortune to find an opportunity at Condé Nast on the Vanity Fair design team in 2000. I worked with magazine legends like Graydon Carter, Annie Leibovitz, George Lois, Mark Seliger, Chris Dixon, and David Harris. I designed hundreds of covers at my desk with Graydon. Many of them went on to win awards–including an ASME for best cover design for our Tina Fey issue. In hindsight, I think we would have been a lock for “most coverlines on a cover”, if such an award existed. The storytelling and visual skills I gained in this role continue to shape me as a creative. I feel extremely lucky to have had an insider’s experience of the hey-day of magazines in the early 2000s, expense account and all.