A farewell to a Design Giant: Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser passed away this past weekend at the too-early age of 90. He'd been in dialysis while the COVID-19 virus tre through Manhattan—his workplace and home, and he reflected in an interview that we are all confined; he to his machine, the rest of us voluntarily in quarantine.


If you're not familiar with Mr. Glaser, we was the designer of the iconic I ❤ NY signage, but he never considered that to be the epitome of his career. Just look him up on the web; he designed the Dylan album cover of Bob in silhouette, he has a number of fonts to his name. and was in the late stages of completing a companion piece to the I Live New York design..."Together". It appealed to Milton personally, not commissioned or anything. He just looked at the Human Condition from his Lower East Side loft, and wanted to do something with his personal strength to comment and beautify our day to day lives.

I do not believe he had an ingenue in training.

Maybe it says something that Milton Glaser will be impossible to replace.

See you on the other side, Mr. Glaser.

Attachment 127312


Attachment 127313

He and Saul Bass were two of the icons in the graphic design industry.

Indeed. Manhattan was steeped in "The Giants" that I witnessed only at the tail end of the "Madmen" era.

Seymour Chwast, Dick Hess, Herb Lubalin...everything from New York magazine, to Screaming Yellow Zonkers, to the ITC type foundry.

I'm glad the web is picking up on this revolution/evolution in graphics, if only for the fact that important stuff went on two generations ago that should be immortalized as much as possible.