meIt’s a privilege and an occasional frustration for graphic designers to provide the backgrounds of millions of lives, without those millions always being aware that they have. So it was for Milton Glaser, who died on Friday, on his 91st birthday.
It is difficult to think of a visual artist so penetrating in his influence. If you’re a certain age, you may have noticed his carnival covers on the Shakespeare Signet Classic series of pocket plays, or you may have had the poster he made for Bob Dylan Great Successes, in which the wild and shiny hair of the singer’s austere silhouette sprouts. With the Push Pin Studios, which he helped found in 1954 with other graduates of the Cooper Union School of Design, he can be said to have created what became the look of the ’60s: flowing lines, rainbow colors, strong patterns .
If you’re younger, you may have come across the rotating “B” on their Brooklyn Beer labels, or their designs for the Crazy men T.V. series. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone, of any age, in the Western world to have found their “I Love New York” motif, invented in 1976 to help bring despair out of bankruptcy. Aside from the original version, there are countless knockoffs.
Glaser combined deep seriousness about his own discipline with an openness to inspiration from wherever it may come from. He believed in the importance of mastering the skill of drawing, which at one point he studied with the great Italian artist Giorgio Morandi. His work has, in its strength of line and the clarity of its contrasts, the virtues of Bauhaus modernism.
At the same time, he reacted explicitly against the puritanism of that tradition. He was promiscuous in his inspirations, borrowing ideas from art nouveau, Renaissance painting, Islamic ornament, pop art, commercial culture.
by New York magazine, which he co-founded in 1968, co-wrote the column “Underground Gourmet” in cheap ethnic restaurants in the city. “The world is a very surprising place,” he said in old age. “What I feel lucky is that I am still amazed, that things still surprise me. The possibility of learning never disappears. “
He liked to tell his childhood experience of being bedridden with rheumatic fever. “The only thing that kept me alive,” he said, was that his mother brought him a daily supply of modeling clay, which he would turn into “little universes,” which he would later destroy and remake. The point he took in his professional life was always to create things again, “keep moving and not get caught up in my own past.”
Over and over, he emphasized the importance of continuing to learn. “We were all born with genius,” he said. “She is like our fairy godmother. But what happens in life is that we stop listening to our inner voices and we no longer have access to this extraordinary ability to create poetry. “
‘Anyone who lives in New York will see it 100 times a day’: meet Milton Glaser, the creator of the ‘I love NY’ logo – video
In his work, everything is lively. Letters acquire the qualities of living beings. The characters had character. In The alfazeds, the children’s book he made with his wife Shirley, the alphabet becomes a series of personalities, progressively joining a party in what begins as an empty room.
It is this attitude that makes the “I Love NY” emblem, where the guy and the heart symbol work together, so successful. It was also with a strong sense of humanity and ethics. The logo itself made it pro bono, as it believed in the cause of reviving the city.
In his “12 Steps on the Graphic Designer’s Hell Road” essay, he lamented design abuse for things like “a diet product you know doesn’t work.”
He described art, including graphic design, as “a gift giving,” a way of putting something in the world that people can share, “a device to prevent people from killing each other.” The way to know if a particular job was good, she said, was to ask if working with the client made you feel happy at the end of the day.
Milton Glaser was an archetypal New Yorker, born in the South Bronx to immigrants from Hungary, and spent most of his life in the city. His love for the melting pot, for the human energy of the city streets, shines in his work, but his achievements spread far from there. They come from his incessant curiosity and energy. “None of us has the ability to understand our path,” he said, “until it is over.”
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