Art Paul, Playboy logo creator, dies

CHICAGO — Magazine designer Art Paul, who created Playboy’s famous tuxedoed bunny head logo, has died. He was 93.

Paul died of pneumonia on Saturday at a Chicago-area hospital, according to his wife, Suzanne Seed. Paul was a freelance illustrator when he started working with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as the magazine’s first employee in the 1950s. He has said he crafted the bunny logo in about an hour. Paul also hired artists to create illustrations for Playboy, including Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and Shel Silverstein.

Paul was the magazine’s art director until he retired in 1982.

“We didn’t think it would be such a success right from the beginning, just Hefner and I putting it together,” Paul told the Chicago Suntimes. “Hef was kind to me. I think I gave him a lot. He gave me a lot.”

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

AIGA, the professional association for design, says it’s a “testament to Paul’s design acumen” that the Playboy logo is universally recognized even without the Playboy name.

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