The magazine focused on stories and photos of people, places, style, and other cultural affairs occurring in Los Angeles and its surrounding cities and communities.

[2][3] Covers were illustrated by the likes of Milton Glaser, Robert Grossman, Edward Sorel, John Van Hamersveld, Richard Weigand, and Sailisbury himself.

[4][5] As with West, the magazine was a weekly supplemental to the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

In 2006, the Los Angeles Times announced it was resurrecting West magazine, edited by Rick Wartzman, with writer Amy Tan as the literary editor.

[8][9] In 2012, the magazine won a national prize when the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that Times photographer Michael Robinson Chavez won the international photography category for his work "Broken Promise: Gold Mining in Peru's High Andes," published in 2011.