The designer who created Playboy's famous tuxedoed bunny logo has died aged 93.
Art Paul became the magazine's first employee when he started working with its founder Hugh Hefner in 1953.
He was working as a freelance illustrator when Hefner contacted him saying he needed an art director for a magazine he was developing.
Paul, who served as Playboy's art director until 1982, claims to have crafted the bunny logo in roughly an hour.
During his lengthy tenure he hired artists including Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali to create illustrations for the publications.
Reflecting on Playboy's early days, he told the Chicago Sun Times: "We didn't think it would be such a success right from the beginning, just Hefner and I putting it together.
"Hef was kind to me. I think I gave him a lot. He gave me a lot."
Paul was born in Chicago on 18 January 1925 and studied a scholarship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
He later served with the US Army Air Corps during World War Two.
Paul returned to Chicago after the war and picked up his studies at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Christie Hefner, daughter of Hugh Hefner and former chairman and CEO of Playboy, said: "Art deserves the credit for the illustrator's liberation.
"He helped redefine the whole notion of commercial art as being able to be as well regarded and legitimate as high art."
After leaving Playboy, Paul continued working, including teaching and designing for magazines, adverts, television and film.
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He spent the last decade of his life drawing and painting.
He was a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame and won many awards.
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