Milton Glaser

“Certainty is a closing of the mind. To create something new you must have doubt.”

Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser is a renowned American designer and illustrator. Born in 1929 New York City, Glaser studied at the High School of Music and Art, then the Cooper Union School of Art in New York. After which he finalized his studies at the Academy of Fine Art in Italy. He is also the co-founder of Pushpin Studios and New York Magazine. During 1954, the use of naturalistic illustration for mass media imaging was on the decline as photography and television began to change the visual communication industry.

Glaser and his team at Pushpin Studios drew from popular culture, their understanding of modern art and non-western art, to construct an new conceptual approach to graphic design. A naturalistic and traditional approach to graphic design was at the core of this new approach. Glaser believes that computers streamlines the approach to design.

“Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking.”

Milton Glaser

Gallery

I Heart NY

Milton Glaser is probably best known for his I Heart NY design.

This design is a logo that was accompanied by a song and is the basis of an advertising campaign and have been used since 1977 to promote tourism in New York City. In the vastly multicultural diaspora of the city, anyone there could translate image, which is the core of visual communication. The logo was created 4 decades ago and is now symbolic to the spirit or New York.

Bob Dilan’s Greatest Hits Album Poster

Another well know design from the artist is his special poster mad to accompany Bob Dilan’s Greatest Hits album in 1966. The poster features a silhouette of Bob Dilan in profile and his curly hair implied with curly and wavy shapes in very saturated colours. This alludes to the popularity of psychedelic drugs that was gaining popularity in the counter culture at the time.

Inspired Works

Portrait of Milton Glaser by illustrator Jeanne Detallante for the Observer (2016). The swirls and saturated colours are inspired by Glacer’s Bob Dylan Greatest Hits album poster.

“Day Dreamer” (2018) by Vincent Trinidad inspired by the concept of psychedelia in Glacier’s Bob Dylan Greatest Hits album poster.