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Rediscovering the relationship between design and life through a humanist lens
Milton Glaser (1929-2020) was the most humanist graphic designer of the 20th century, defining a design path distinct from functionalism through his unique eclectic style and deep concern for design ethics. His rainbow-hair silhouette poster for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits album (1967) became a pop culture icon; 'I Love New York' (1977, originally written as 'I♥NY') designed for the NYC tourism campaign became one of the most widely disseminated graphic designs in history. Push Pin Studios (1954), which he co-founded with Seymour Chwast, fundamentally changed American illustration and graphic design aesthetics, bringing narrative and historical visual languages back to commercial design. He also co-founded New York Magazine (1968) with Clay Felker, pioneering a new genre of urban cultural magazine. In his later years, Glaser proposed the 'First Things First 2000' manifesto and 'Twelve Steps on the Road to Hell' questioning whether designers should serve products that harm users, bringing professional ethics to the center of design discourse.
Glaser believed the most fundamental motivation of design is understanding and empathy for human experience. A good designer must first be a person of cultural depth and humanist care to create work that truly resonates with people. Technical ability is necessary but far from sufficient; design requires intellectual breadth, historical awareness, and love of life.
Source: Art Is Work by Milton Glaser, 2000
Glaser never believed working for commercial clients was a compromise of art. He believed commercial commissions provided the most effective channel for artists to communicate with the public, while artists' creativity injected cultural meaning into commercial communication. The success of Push Pin Studios precisely proved this belief — illustration, typography, and visual storytelling can be simultaneously commercial and artistic.
Source: Milton Glaser: Graphic Design, 1973 / The Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic, 2005
In his later years, Glaser became increasingly concerned with design ethics: designers don't just serve clients — they influence public behavior and social culture. His 'Twelve Steps on the Road to Hell' (designing for cigarettes → ... → advocating for weapons of mass destruction) built a progressive framework for design ethics, questioning when designers should refuse commissions.
Source: Twelve Steps on the Road to Hell, AIGA address by Milton Glaser, 2002
Glaser refused to be defined by any single design style or movement. He freely drew from Art Nouveau, Pop Art, the Italian Renaissance, children's book illustration, and any historical or contemporary style he deemed appropriate, believing stylistic diversity reflects breadth of thinking, not lack of stance.
Source: Art Is Work by Milton Glaser, 2000
Use unexpected visual metaphors to break the audience's cognitive inertia, establishing a profound emotional connection in an instant.
Bob Dylan Greatest Hits poster (1967): a simple black silhouette with rainbow-colored wavy hair — symbolizing the diversity and freedom of Dylan's music while capturing the spirit of the 1960s counterculture. This metaphor is visually more truthful than any realistic portrait.
The most effective design should first create surprise (breaking expectations), then trigger recognition (confirming inner feelings), establishing unforgettable memory between the two.
I♥NY logo (1977): compresses abstract urban identity into three symbols (I + heart + NY), combining visual surprise (image replacing the word 'Love') with instant recognition ('that's exactly how I feel'). This combination became one of the most widely replicated graphic designs in history.
Mine visual inspiration from the depths of history and culture rather than chasing current trends, creating contemporary works with historical depth.
Push Pin Studios' design language (1950s-1970s): Glaser and Chwast freely drew from Art Nouveau's organic curves, Victorian decorative typefaces, and children's picture book narrativity — bringing these historical visual languages that modernism had 'purged' back to commercial design, creating a new American eclectic design style.
I♥NY is one of Glaser's simplest works (three elements, sketched in 15 minutes), yet became his most influential design and brought real psychological comfort to New York City during its low period. True emotional depth often requires no complex form.
Glaser refused a fixed style, yet each of his works is unmistakably 'Glaserian' — this recognizability comes not from formal unity but from the consistency of his attitude, curiosity, and humanist care.
1954-1974
Through Push Pin Studios, rebelling against the dominance of modernist design and bringing narrative and historical visual languages back to commercial design
Glaser and Seymour Chwast founded Push Pin Studios in New York, using eclecticism and narrativity to oppose the then-dominant Swiss International Style, creating a large body of era-defining covers and illustrations for Village Voice, New York Magazine, and other media, redefining the possibilities of American graphic design.
1967-1990
Creating iconic visual symbols that influence popular culture, bringing design into everyday public life
The Bob Dylan poster (1967) and I♥NY (1977) made Glaser a truly cultural phenomenon designer. During this period he also co-founded New York Magazine, redefining urban cultural media through a designer's lens. His work broke down the boundary between 'high-end design' and 'popular culture.'
1990-2020
Bringing design ethics into mainstream design discourse, building the humanist dimension of design through education and writing
Glaser continued teaching at Cooper Union in his later years, and through books and lectures pushed design ethics, social responsibility, and humanist care to the center of design discussion. His 'Twelve Steps on the Road to Hell' (2002 AIGA lecture) became a classic text in design professional ethics discussion. With wife Shirley, he designed warmly atmospheric interiors for several New York restaurants, demonstrating design's capacity to elevate everyday quality of life.
Context: On a Fulbright scholarship, Glaser studied in Italy under Giorgio Morandi, master of printmaking and still life. Morandi's philosophy of 'exploring much with little' profoundly influenced Glaser's understanding of visual simplicity.
Decision: Chose to go to Italy for humanist arts education rather than continuing commercial design training in America
Reasoning: Believed designers must first be culturally deep artists to create truly meaningful work
Outcome: The European humanist artistic tradition became the spiritual backdrop of Glaser's entire career
Lesson: A deep artistic education foundation is the most important guarantee for a designer's sustained creativity
Context: After graduating from Cooper Union, Glaser and classmate Seymour Chwast founded Push Pin Studios in New York, opposing the Swiss International Style then dominating American design with a narrative and historically rich eclectic style.
Decision: Chose eclecticism and narrativity rather than the mainstream functionalist minimalist style
Reasoning: Believed design's vitality comes from historical and cultural depth, not stylistic purity
Outcome: Push Pin Studios changed the aesthetic direction of American graphic design and illustration, directly influencing design trends of the 1960s-70s
Lesson: Establishing a position sharply distinct from the mainstream in a field is an effective path to creating lasting influence
Context: Glaser designed a color insert poster for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits — a black profile silhouette with rainbow-hued wavy hair; distributed with the album in large quantities, this poster became an iconic visual symbol of the 1960s counterculture movement.
Decision: Chose an abstract silhouette with colored hair rather than a realistic portrait, using visual metaphor to express Dylan's musical spirit
Reasoning: A realistic portrait can only record appearance; abstract symbols can convey essence and spirit
Outcome: Approximately 6 million posters distributed with the album, becoming one of the most widely disseminated printed works of the 20th century, cited by countless artists and designers
Lesson: When a visual metaphor precisely matches the emotions of the era, a design work can transcend its original function to become a cultural symbol
Context: Glaser and editor Clay Felker spun off the New York Herald Tribune's weekly supplement to become New York Magazine, using deep design integration to make it a model for urban cultural magazines, directly influencing later city magazines like Boston and Los Angeles.
Decision: Positioned the designer as co-publisher (not just a service provider), deeply involved in content direction and visual strategy
Reasoning: A magazine's core is the perfect unity of editorial perspective and visual expression; designers must be equal partners in content creation
Outcome: New York Magazine became the benchmark for urban cultural media; Glaser's visual strategy became a reference model for city magazine design
Lesson: Designers participating in media entrepreneurship as founding partners can realize the full value of design far more than as external service providers
Context: Glaser left Push Pin Studios, which he had co-founded, and continued design practice under his personal company, exploring broader design fields including interior design, product design, and large visual systems.
Decision: Left a successful partnership to independently explore broader design possibilities
Reasoning: Needed freer creative space to explore design's possibilities in different dimensions
Outcome: Milton Glaser Inc became the platform for Glaser to explore restaurant, interior, and large public design projects; I♥NY was a work of this period
Lesson: Leaving already-successful structures at the right time is a necessary condition for continued innovation and growth
Context: The New York State Tourism Bureau launched a campaign to revitalize tourism in New York City during its fiscal crisis, commissioning Glaser to design a logo. He quickly sketched on the back of a brown paper bag with a red crayon in a taxi — three elements (I + heart + NY) formed the symbol that changed New York's fate. Glaser completed the design for a symbolic 1 dollar fee, treating it as a gift to New York City.
Decision: Used a heart symbol to replace the word Love, conveying the most intense emotion in the simplest form
Reasoning: During a city's most difficult period, what was needed was a symbol that could immediately trigger emotional resonance, not a carefully crafted logo
Outcome: I♥NY became the most widely imitated graphic design in history, directly boosting New York tourism recovery and sparking a global wave of city heart symbol designs
Lesson: The greatest designs often emerge from urgent real-world needs rather than from abundant creative conditions
Context: Glaser delivered a lecture at the AIGA design conference proposing the professional ethics dilemma of designers: from designing for legal but harmful products (tobacco), to serving deceptive advertising, to advocating for weapons of mass destruction — a gradual moral slippery slope. This lecture became a milestone in design ethics discussion.
Decision: Publicly discussed designers' moral boundaries, even if it meant criticizing commercially accepted practices in the industry
Reasoning: Designers' work has real social impact; remaining silent equals tacit approval; moral boundaries must be explicitly stated
Outcome: The lecture text spread widely, becoming standard reading material for design ethics courses, inspiring systematic discussion of professional ethics in the global design community
Lesson: Publicly raising uncomfortable ethical questions in one's most authoritative field is true intellectual courage
Context: Milton Glaser died on June 26, 2020, at his New York home at age 91; the date happened to be Bob Dylan's birthday. This coincidence was seen by the design world as a kind of ordained historical echo.
Decision: (Lifelong choice) Always placed humanist care and honesty at the core of design
Reasoning: Design's meaning lies not in the works themselves but in their genuine contribution to human life and society
Outcome: Glaser's work and thought continue to influence global design practice as the banner of design humanism
Lesson: True influence lies in injecting values into one's field, not merely leaving a technical or stylistic legacy
Glaser's personal portfolio and collection of design philosophy essays; in multiple public lectures he called this book a complete record of his design thinking. The title itself is his core belief — art and design are not opposites; work is the site of artistic practice.
Co-edited by Glaser and designer Mirko Ilic, collecting design works from global political and social movements, reflecting Glaser's deep concern for design's social responsibility in his later years. He cited cases from this book in multiple lectures to articulate design ethics.
In this book, Glaser argues that hand-drawn sketching is the core tool of design thinking, not a substitute for digital tools. In multiple interviews he emphasized that daily drawing practice is fundamental to maintaining creativity. The title is his core belief about the design process.
Italian painter Morandi's aesthetic of 'exploring much with little' and his deep attention to everyday objects profoundly influenced Glaser's understanding of visual simplicity and the poetry of everyday life.
Push Pin Studios co-founder who together with Glaser defined American eclectic illustration style; their complementarity made Push Pin Studios one of the era's most influential design studios.
Paula Scher's eclectic typographic style and free citation of historical visual languages are clearly influenced by Glaser and the Push Pin Studios eclectic tradition.
Glaser and Chwast's 20-year collaboration at Push Pin Studios is one of the most important creative partnerships in 20th-century American design history, jointly defining eclectic design aesthetics.
Milton was the most humanist of all designers. He saw design not as a problem to be solved but as an opportunity to express what it means to be alive.
He showed us that design could be funny and smart and beautiful and sad and meaningful all at the same time. He showed us that design is art.
