We heart Milton Glaser

“This is the last design I had the privilege to work on with Milton. He told me he wanted to create something to enhance the sense of community during the covid19 crisis. It was his belief that a designer has a responsibility towards society to make it better. For everyone.”
Ignacio Serrano

Since he passed, for the last week I have tried – unsuccessfully – to write a post detailing the impact and influence of Milton Glaser on my life. What dawned on me was that this was a narrow, selfish lens to use. Milton Glaser didn't effect me. He effected the world.

Having said that, I still remember the day when Manchester design studio Drawing Board relented and opened their doors to a teenaged me and a couple of other friends who, pre-internet, were drawn to the world of graphic design in a magnetic way. A book had just been released, a copy of which they had in the studio, it was called A Smile in the Mind. We were taken through that book by an infectiously talented junior designer who showed us page after page, idea after idea. It was a genuine epiphany for me and changed my world forever, to think that graphic design not only provides the backdrop of our lives, but can also be so incredibly witty, incisive and ultimately beautiful.

Making it to New York a couple of years later, I saw Milton’s I ♥ NY logo for the city was everywhere, whether official or not. It’s incredible that something so simple can embody so much. But the I ♥ NY logo was just one piece in a vast body of work, all of which emanates from drawing and sketching.

Please read Rowan Moore’s obituary taken from the Observer last weekend.

And this piece in Design Week.