American designer Lester Beall (1903-1969) was educated at Lane Technical School in Chicago and received a bachelors degree in art history from the University of Chicago. Upon discovering the work of the European avant garde, Beall was inspired to bring American design of the 1930s to a higher level of effective visual communication. Beall moved from Chicago to New York City in 1935 and did much work that was influential to the field of editorial design. Between 1938 and 1940, he redesigned twenty magazines for McGraw Hill, in 1946 he designed two covers for Fortune and in 1944, he began designing Scope magazine for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals which he did until 1951. In 1952, Beall opened a design office in Dumbarton farm, his home in rural Connecticut. In 1972, three years after his death, Lester Beall was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame.