Sexology Magazine: “Sex Science Illustrated”

Sexology magazine was published from 1933 to the late 1960s by Hugo Gernsback, who is best-known for creating the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926. Gernsback published dozens of other magazines, including Science Wonder Stories, Amazing Detective Stories, and Science and Mechanics. The Magazine Art website has a fine collection of Sexology covers (it was the source for most of these images). Sexology featured an ever changing tagline under the logo, including “Sex Science Illustrated,” “The Magazine of Sex Science,” “Authoritative Guide to Sex Education,” and “Educational Facts for Everybody.”

My favorite Sexology covers are from the 1960s. They were low-budget creations, using clip art and crude collages and illustrations. Best of all, the covers featured highly creative uses of black and a single color, usually red or orange, to create the illusion of full color printing. The art direction from this period reminds me of the brilliant covers of Jet magazine from the 1960s art directed by Herbert Temple, which also featured two-color design and raw graphics and photos.

Here are a dozen of my favorite 1960s covers of Sexology magazine.