
Milton Glaser, designer of ‘I ♥ NY’ logo, has died - wallflower
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/obituaries/milton-glaser-dead.html
======
simtel20
About 7 years ago, the brooklyn brewsers, a beer brewing club, got the tour of
the brooklyn brewery. On that tour, the brewmaster, Garrett Oliver, told the
story of how Glaser designed the logo for the brewery. He said he drew the
bold B [1] and the founders were not that impressed. The story went that
Milton said with some confidence, essentially "sleep on it, let it grow on
you" and so it did. And more HN related, I recall that he took a small share
of the company as payment so he really had some confidence in the logo which
has become among the most iconic logos in the beer industry.

It was a wonderful story, and something I will always remember about the man.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111004163949/http://miltonglas...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111004163949/http://miltonglaser.com/pages/casestudy/brooklyn/bb_index.html)

~~~
intpx
The Brooklyn Brewery logo looks like genuine new old stock graphic design. It
looks like it was done in the 50s and sat on a shelf, rather than emulating
the style of the old regional breweries. It’s a true work of art. Glaser was a
master of the fundamentals of graphic design. He understood weight and form in
ways that have largely been forgotten and I fear that we have now lost the
last of the breed.

------
the_other
Whilst contracting with a London digital agency in the mid '00s, I overheard a
design conversation which stuck with me (in a bad way). One designer commented
something like "Good design stays in place; bad design goes everywhere",
citing Glaser's logo as an example of "bad design". I felt they were wrong, at
the time, and the experience has actually helped me understand design and art
better since (I'm a programmer, not a designer). It's very rare to create
something so meaningful and recognisable, replicable, with "seams" you can
easily unstitch to recycle the image whilst keeping a visual and semantic link
to its source. Amazing.

EDIT: gave up trying to use the right heart character. EDIT: better grammar.

------
smurda
He spoke at my university and said something that stuck with me, “never ask a
question to show that you know something, but always ask in earnest and be
vulnerable to the fact that you don’t know something.”

~~~
xtiansimon
A little aside--I have a colleague who will ask a question, and then they ask
another one, at which point you realize they already have an answer. HA! Just
tell me the idea. Don't manipulate like a child. Magic spell to make their
conclusions inevitable, because you answered two leading questions.

Bravo Milton.

------
telekid
Sad to hear of his passing - Glaser was prolific. I used to work fairly
regularly with a company (Masque Sound) that provided audio equipment for
Broadway shows. Milton arranged a beautiful illustration for their 75th
anniversary. I still have a shirt with that drawing on it - it's a cherished
possession.

------
creaghpatr
Pretty sure he did the Mad Men season 7 graphic, which was fucking awesome.

Edit: [https://images.amcnetworks.com/blogs.amctv.com/wp-
content/up...](https://images.amcnetworks.com/blogs.amctv.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/mm7-key-art-796.jpg)

~~~
rst
That was him -- there was an interview at the time about, in part, being part
of the period for which the show was a period piece...

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/arts/design/mad-men-
enlis...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/07/arts/design/mad-men-enlists-the-
graphics-guru-milton-glaser.html?searchResultPosition=3)

------
zerealshadowban
I always "read" it in my mind as I <heart> NY, not I <love> NY.

~~~
dang
Part of its charm is that ambiguity. I think we can break the rules and put a
♥ up there for Milton.

~~~
runnr_az
The heart really jumps off the page, doesn’t it?

~~~
wodenokoto
Unicode also have hearts that aren’t colored pictures (which gets filtered out
if you try to write them on HN apparently) But then again, some people get a
black line. I guess we can let others get a colored emoji.

~~~
robin_reala
It’s actually down to what Unicode you use. We ran into this on Standard
Ebooks tooling for return-to-text arrows in the endnotes, and the solution is
to add a U+FE0E character after the emoji to indicate a textual rendering is
preferred. More info at [https://mts.io/2015/04/21/unicode-symbol-render-text-
emoji/](https://mts.io/2015/04/21/unicode-symbol-render-text-emoji/)

~~~
wodenokoto
I had no idea about that being a thing.

I was thinking of the symbols that predates emoji, like the white heart suit
from the early 90s

[https://emojipedia.org/white-heart-suit/](https://emojipedia.org/white-heart-
suit/)

------
whoisjuan
Milton Glaser is probably the most well known graphic designer in history
because of his I (Heart) NY work, but he has so many outstanding pieces of
graphic design work.

It always amazes me how incredibly timeless are his logos. You could launch
any brand with that logo tomorrow and it wouldn’t look out of place.

He also did some great satirical pieces.

~~~
Lol_80005
[https://www.miltonglaser.com/the-work/](https://www.miltonglaser.com/the-
work/) I like the gallery posted on his website. His work was _really_ high
profile.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Ha.

Whenever I think of New York I see the New York Magazine logo in my minds eye.

~~~
app4soft
As for me New York mostly associated with "NY" ( _New York Yankees_ ) cap
logo.

------
xtian
I highly recommend the documentary “To Inform and Delight” which tells the
story of Glaser’s life and work. A really marvelous individual.

------
weinzierl
Glancing the frontpage and seeing a bright red heart in the corner of my eye
my first thought was: How did click-bait like this make the frontpage.

After reading the full title I have to say, this is the most appropriate use
of a non-baseplane unicode character - or whatever characters like this are
called - I can imagine.

------
Someone
_“Mr. Glaser designed a modified version — “I NY More Than Ever,” with a dark
bruise on the heart”_

[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/nyregion/12loveny.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/nyregion/12loveny.html):

 _”In fact, the only thing Mr. Glaser regrets is that, after the terrorist
attack of Sept. 11, 2001, he designed a “I NY More Than Ever” logo as a
patriotic symbol.

The Pataki administration threatened to (but did not) sue him for trademark
infringement. “The stupidity!” Mr. Glaser sputtered. “It saddened me.””_

------
hypertexthero
> Why do I teach.

> Fundamentally I teach because it makes me feel good.

> Its helped me certainly clarify my own objectives. There is nothing more
> exciting than seeing someone whose life has been affected by, in a positive
> way, by something you’ve said. There is nothing more exciting to see
> somebody change from a, a sort of condition of inertness or inattentiveness
> into a mind that beings to inquire about meaning. I think if you don’t do
> something to project into the future that way, the possibility for total
> self-absorption and narcissism becomes very much greater.

…

> My idea about graphic designers and social commentary is that that is part
> of the practice. I’ve always believed that because you have access to
> people’s minds and you communicate to people, that there is a corresponding
> responsibility, the responsibility of being a good citizen, and also
> recognizing that if you have the ability to transfer ideas from one point to
> another, that those should be ideas that cause no harm.

— Milton Glaser

[https://vimeo.com/19005726](https://vimeo.com/19005726)

[https://vimeo.com/6986303](https://vimeo.com/6986303)

[https://www.simongriffee.com/notebook/milton-
glaser/](https://www.simongriffee.com/notebook/milton-glaser/)

Goodbye, Milton :(

------
ddrt
The man was a legend. I’ll miss his wit and charm. I remember him most for his
bold Tommy Hilfiger billboard that made the company practically overnight.

~~~
ganstyles
Hey, I did a search for this and didn't see anything. Would you mind posting
this billboard?

~~~
infecto
I suspect its a mixup with George Lois [http://www.georgelois.com/tommy-
hilfiger.html](http://www.georgelois.com/tommy-hilfiger.html)

~~~
Daub
Saved me the search. Thanks. But George Lois also good

~~~
olivermarks
George Lois played a very major part in the creation of modern advertising
creativity evolution and vitality in the 60's, and is an art director rather
than a graphic designer.

Glaser came out of the same explosion of NY commercial creativity in the 60's
and has a certain style that has endured and is successfully timeless, which
is quite uncommon in the design world where styles go in and out of fashion.

------
supernova87a
I don't know whether Glaser's work could fall into the tail end of mid-century
modern, but I love both that and his prime years of work. This page is a great
example of the graphic design for The Incredibles which draws on the heyday of
Los Angeles and New York (in my mind):
[http://joshholtsclaw.com/blog/2018/3/5/the-graphic-art-of-
in...](http://joshholtsclaw.com/blog/2018/3/5/the-graphic-art-of-
incredibles-2)

If anyone else has similar pages they like and would share, I'd love to see
more!

------
kostadin
One of my favorite work of his was a poster[1] he did for a Darfur antiwar
campaign, I still remember seeing this on streets in NYC. Super powerful and
timeless image.

[1] [https://www.miltonglaser.com/the-work/418/school-of-
visual-a...](https://www.miltonglaser.com/the-work/418/school-of-visual-arts-
we-are-all-african/)

------
newscracker
I love “I love NY” (can’t seem to type the heart character and not have it
removed by HN). When I see a similar line with some other city’s name, I feel
like it’s just a copy where someone couldn’t add something on their own.

The number of souvenirs and clothing sold with this should probably be in
hundreds of millions, at the very least.

------
runnr_az
Oh man... that’s a shame. Iconic bit of design, up there with the smiley face,
just above the LOVE statues.

------
Daub
I went to art school in the 80s. My lecturer would rote teach:

Q: who is the best artist?

A: Picasso!

Q: Who is the best graphic designer?

A: Milton Glazier!

Many young art teachers have never heard of MG, yet worship designers who have
clearly been influenced by him.

~~~
ryanSrich
> Many young art teachers have never heard of MG

I find this almost impossible to believe. MG is like the VERY first graphic
designer you're introduced to in Art School. Any art school.

~~~
Daub
Well... maybe not here in Asia. The only time they will be introduced to
western historical figures is in their design history class, of which there
are likely to be no more that two. They would certainly never hear it at high
school.

Also, wherever they come from, young people nowadays tend to jump straight
into Pinterest, Deviant Art etc. These collections are not curated, and are,
to them, little more that images without context. They may have seen MG's work
in this manner, but would be unlikely to know his name.

This is very different to when I was at school. Browsing a library is a very
different experience to browsing the web.

------
xtiansimon
I'm amazed and delighted about the outpouring of praise for Glaser here at HN.
All fans of Graphic Design? Or New Yorkers?

------
RunawayGalaxy
I love the logo he did for Brooklyn Brewery.

------
x87678r
Best version I saw was

NY does NOT (heart) you

------
proc0
Quite the symbol, not just his work, but the timing of his death. NYC burning
and crashing down economically, a dying logo for a dying city.

