Portfolio: Milton Glaser

by Lynn Woods, May 26, 2009

In a career spanning more than half a century, Milton Glaser has been responsible for some of the most memorable logos, labels, posters, and magazine illustrations of modern times. Some have become classics: the I ♥ NY logo; the design of New York magazine (Glaser co-founded the publication in 1968 and was design director until 1977); the redesign of Paris Match; and the Bob Dylan poster with the silhouette and swirling, brilliantly colored hair (the image was inspired by a Marcel Duchamp cut-out and an Islamic painting). Nothing, it seems, has been beyond the reach of his protean graphic talents: he has designed restaurant, hotel, and museum interiors; lamps, cutting boards, jewelry, and a time capsule; stationery, annual reports, signage for a shopping mall, a children’s park, and countless periodicals and newspapers around the globe. His clients have run the gamut, from The Nation to Grand Union (he redesigned all of the supermarket chain’s packaging, interiors, and architecture).

Born in the Bronx in 1929, Glaser attended the High School of Music and Art, and Cooper Union. As a Fulbright scholar at the Academy of Arts in Bologna, he studied etching with a modernist master, the painter Giorgio Morandi. Upon his return to New York he co-founded Pushpin Studios, which revolutionized the world of graphic design. Fifty-five years later, Glaser shows no signs of slowing down. His recently published book, Drawing Is Thinking (Overlook Press, 2008), is a compendium of his drawings and prints, arranged in a loose sequence of themes. It reflects his fascination with various styles and traditions of art, ranging from Chinese brush painting to the Renaissance to Matisse, his marvelous imagination, and his inimitable qualities as a draftsman. His works are currently being exhibited in Southampton, Paris, Milan, and Slovenia. A movie, Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight, is about to be released, and he has just completed the design for a movie house at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), where he has taught for more than 50 years.

On a recent afternoon, I met with Glaser in his Manhattan studio, which he has maintained since 1965 (he is also a weekend resident of Woodstock). We sat at a table in a sunny room with butternut walls. A paper model of the bar he designed as part of the SVA movie house was displayed on one shelf, while another was cluttered with bibelots and samples of his work, including bottles of Brooklyn Lager Beer (the logo is currently peppered all over the city). Tall and lanky, Glaser moves gracefully, like a cat, and his voice is eloquent, with just a trace of New Yorkese.

Portfolio: www.miltonglaser.com