‘I Heart NY’ Graphic Designer Dies 91 – Variety

The “I Heart NY” logo was created by renowned graphic designer Milton Glazer, who died on June 26, his 91st birthday. According to The New York Times, his wife, Shirley Glasser, said the stroke was the cause of death, although she also suffered from renal failure.

Glazer is best known for his 1966 Bob Dylan psychedelic posters and logo designs for DC Comics, Brooklyn Brewery and Stony Brook University. He co-founded New York Magazine in 1968 with Clay Felker.

Glazer was born on June 26, 1929, in the Bronx Borough of New York. He attended the Manhattan High School of Music and Art and graduated from Cooper Union in 1954 with a degree in science and art. Shortly afterwards, Glazer founded Pim Pin Studios, along with Seymour Chavast, Reynold Raffins, and Edward Sorel, who became one of the leaders in unconventional graphic design for the next 20 years. Glazer finally left Posh Pin at 19 design5, a year after founding his own design firm, Milton Glazer Inc.

In 1966, Glasser was commissioned to design a poster for Dylan’s album, “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits.” Although it was one of the first posters of Glaser, it quickly became iconic due to the colorful and psychedelic design of Dylan’s hair, which was inspired by the Art Nuva movement. Glasser designed nearly 400 posters of his career.

Felker and Glazer founded New York Magazine in 1968 to document everything in New York City. He co-authored one of its most popular columns, “Underground Gourmet”, for seven years and finally left the magazine in 1977 when the city hired logo designers in hopes of boosting tourism. Inspired by Robert Indiana’s “Love” image, Glasser created the iconic “I Heart NY” logo, which grossed about million 30 million a year in the state of New York. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Glazer redesigned the logo to read “I will never have a heart again.”

In 1983, Glaser formed the publishing design company WBMG with Walter Bernard. Together they redesigned many newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post. He published several books on graphic design, including “The Milton Glazer Poster Book” in 1977, “Art is Work” in 2000, and “Thoughts in Drawing” in 2006. He often teaches at the School of Visual Arts and a documentary was made about him in 2006, “Milton Glazer: To Inform and Daylight.”

Glaser has won numerous awards over the years for his revolutionary graphic design, including a National Design Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cooper-Whit National Design Museum in 2004 and a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2009.