In the Eighties, magazines competed to offer their readers a new look at celebrity faces, with portraits becoming increasingly ingenious and, at times, outrageous. Photographers who could win the trust of stars and their publicists became highly prized and highly compensated.

In the Nineties came a host of new magazines on health and fitness, adventure and travel, family life and home improvements. Start ups like Wired and Fast Company shook up traditional business magazines and offered up more and more photo illustration while Martha Stewart Living managed to create a gallery for still-life photography.

Today, magazines remain one of the ways that we learn about the world, and some publications continue to mix real life with the lifestyle. The photos included here were selected because they remind us of how we lived and reveal how we hoped to live.