Pre-moticon.

The first issue of i-D, August 1980. Designed by Terry Jones.

I have a love hate relationship with online slang. The internet land shorthand can get out of hand, and the elllloonnngatttiiiiooonnn ooooffff woooorrrdddsss drives me bananas, but the one thing I couldn't do without are the winky, smily, sad-faced little emoticons that help make typed-word-only convos a little more human. In this post, I pay homage to one of the first major communication vehicles to make big-time use of the graphic representation of an emotion: i-D Magazine. See it winking at you? It's been doing that since it's first issue (above) published 30 years ago. I was just reading a NYT article that cited the name of the fashion glossy and I winked back. Here, in all of it's glory is the winky wink and it's long tradition of cover girl imitations.

Why the wink? Because it's cheeky like all things British should be. Thanks for so many years of so much fun i-D. Wink on.

For a good time visit the i-D cover archive.