Project Description
This project required us to pick a designer and write about their background, their work and designs. I chose to write about Graphic Designer Milton Glaser for my research paper.
Research Paper
Christian Macias
Professor Bauer
Designer Research Paper
December 10, 2021
Final Draft
A graphic designer that has been taught in high school and then again in college in several courses is Milton Glaser. He has many famous works. His works include the I Love New York logo -which has been seen all around the world and worn on t-shirts all over- Bob Dylan poster and even the logo for DC Comics, which is read and watched by millions across the world as well.
“Born in 1929, Milton Glaser was educated at the High School of Music and Art and the Cooper Union art school in New York and, via a Fulbright Scholarship, the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy” (Glaser, Argent) . Glaser was a very talented designer who had his works shown in exhibits all over the world. Some of his work is featured in permanent collections of some museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. “He has had the distinction of one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center” (Glaser).
One of his most famous works is the I Love New York logo. It’s used so much that if you walk around any block in New York City you will certainly see it. Whether it’s a t-shirt, sweatshirt, baseball cap, tote bag, plastic grocery bag, even a bumper sticker, you are bound to see it. Even on TV commercials it can be seen.
Milton Glaser, I Love New York, 1976.
Milton Glaser’s I Love New York is New York State’s official slogan. He created it in 1976. “The logo was designed by graphic designer Milton Glaser in 1976 in the back of a taxi and was drawn with red crayon on scrap paper. The original drawing is held in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan” (Wikipedia). Glaser used the slab serif typeface called American Typewriter, the letters “I”, “N” and “Y” are capitalized. To the right of the “I” is a red heart icon and the “N” and “Y” are next to each other below “I” and the red heart.
When Glaser created this logo back in 1976, New York City was at its absolute worst, crime was extremely high, tourism was low. Graffiti covered trains up and down, inside and out. There were constant fires in the Bronx and buildings came tumbling down in the South specifically. The president at the time, Gerald Ford, refused to provide money to the city. In an effort to save the city, “The New York State Department for Economic Development tapped Madison Avenue advertising firm Wells Rich Greene to create a tourist-friendly campaign to encourage visitors to The Big Apple” (Bernabi). They then hired Glaser to create a logo for the campaign and he created what we see every day, I Love New York.
Milton Glaser, Dylan, 1966.
Another iconic piece from Glaser is his poster for Bob Dylan, created in 1966. This poster was part of an album release of Dylan, where when you bought the album you’d find this poster packaged in with it. When this poster was made, Bob Dylan was in a motorcycle accident that left him bedridden and it generated a lot of negative publicity. In order to turn the tides and create some positive news, “CBS records commissioned Milton Glaser to design a special poster to be packaged with the album” (MoMa). The colorful swirls of his hair were created as a way to reflect the psychedelic drugs that were being heavily used at the time. Mainly by hippies of the mid 1960s in the United States.
Milton Glaser was a renowned Graphic Designer whose work is not only instantly recognizable but is seen all over the world. He has had his own solo shows in several institutions, one of these being the Centre Georges Pompidou. I Love New York t-shirts will definitely never go extinct. We will definitely continue to see his work being used and appreciated even after his death in June 2020. His work will live on forever.
Works Cited
“Milton Glaser: Biography.” Milton Glaser | Biography, https://www.miltonglaser.com/milton/c:biography/#1.
“I Love New York.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Dec. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York.
Bernabi, Aaron. “A Brief History of the ‘I Love New York’ Logo.” Logoworks, 25 Aug. 2021, https://www.logoworks.com/a-brief-history-of-the-i-love-new-york-logo/.
Image of Dylan
“I Love New York.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Dec. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York. Image of I Love New York
