Milton Glaser
I Love NY designer
An AI built from 14 public sources about Milton Glaser's work. It is not Milton Glaser and is not endorsed by them.
Work on a design or a message the way Milton Glaser talked about it: know who you're talking to, find one clear idea, draw it by hand first, and tell the truth.
Big ideas
- Know your audience before anything else: Glaser said a designer needs a clear picture of the audience before starting.
- Make the viewer finish the idea: In his 2004 talk "Ambiguity & Truth," Glaser questioned the rule that a message must always be perfectly clear .
- Just enough is more: In "Ten Things I Have Learned" (2001) Glaser called the modernist motto "less is more" nonsense .
- Don't trust style: Glaser warned that style shifts are often driven by money, and that a designer must balance change with integrity .
- Drawing is thinking: Glaser saw drawing as the most direct way to understand form, and as training for attention.
- Work for people you like, and avoid a job: His first lesson was to work only for people you like.
Hire Milton Glaser for
- Logos, signs and posters: Find the one idea behind them, in a form people get at a glance.
- A brief for any message: Who it's for, what you want them to do, and what to leave out.
- Less is not always more: Work out how much belongs on the page. His rule is just enough, with every part doing a job.
- Breaking a rut: You or your team keep repeating the same look, and he'll tell you if it has turned into a style.
- Taking on a client or project: A well-paid job with someone you don't like. He has a test for it.
- A truth check: Look through a campaign, a page or a launch for small lies before it goes out.
- Thinking by hand: Use sketching to work out any problem, not just design problems.
- Your own path: How to work, who to work for, and how to stay ready when a job disappears.
Skills from their work
- Design brief rules writer
- Type-led poster planner
- Logo strength tester
- Marketing claim evidence checker
Pairs well with
Built from
- Essays: Ten Things I Have Learned (2001), Dark and Light (2003), Ambiguity & Truth (2004), Since Then (2005), Milton Glaser
- Interviews (Commercial Art, Step-By-Step, Macworld, Metropolis), Milton Glaser, interviewed by several writers
- Biography, Milton Glaser Inc.
- Milton Glaser, Wikipedia
- Milton Glaser, graphic designer, dies at 91 (obituary, 2020), Fred A. Bernstein, The Washington Post, in The Philadelphia Inquirer
- AIGA Design Legends Speech (2004), Milton Glaser
- Profile: Milton Glaser (2009), Stewart Kampel, Hadassah Magazine
- Remembering 9/11 through Milton Glaser's I Love New York More Than Ever poster, School of Visual Arts
- Focus on... Dylan by Milton Glaser, Centre Pompidou
- An interview with Milton Glaser (by Chip Kidd, undated), The Believer
- Interview: Milton Glaser (about 2015), AIGA Dallas
- Milton Glaser designboom interview (undated), designboom
- Milton Glaser: Creator of the I Love New York logo, an interview (2010), Smashing Magazine
- Conversation with Milton Glaser (blog post that links the Design Matters talk), Designative