Milton Glaser: POP

by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, Beth Kleber

'Milton Glaser's designs changed the way we see the world.' - Gloria Steinem An overview of the work of illustrator and designer Milton Glaser during the 1960s and 70s From 1954, when he co-founded the legendary Push Pin Studios, to the late ’70s, Milton Glaser was one of the most celebrated graphic designers of his day, whose work graced countless book and album covers, posters, magazine covers, and advertisements, both famous and little-known. Glaser largely defined the international visual style for illustration, advertising, and typeface design and interest in his legacy continues unabated, with modern creatives acknowledging his influence; for example, in 2014 Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner enlisted Glaser to design the ad campaign and branding for the show’s final season. His renowned work garnered solo exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Creator of the iconic ‘I love NY’ logo (featuring a heart symbol in place of the word ‘love’) and cofounder of New York magazine, Glaser received numerous accolades and lifetime achievement awards. Across thousands of works across all print media, he invented a graphic language of bright, flat color, drawing and collage, imbued with wit. This collection of work from Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of his design that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Genres: Art, Design, Nonfiction, Biography

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 29, 2023

About the author

Steven Heller writes a monthly column on graphic design books for The New York Times Book Review and is co-chair of MFA Design at the School of Visual Arts. He has written more than 100 books on graphic design, illustration and political art, including Paul Rand, Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century, Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design Second Edition, Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age, Graphic Design History, Citizen Designer, Seymour Chwast: The Left Handed Designer, The Push Pin Graphic: Twenty Five Years of Design and Illustration, Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits, The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design. He edits VOICE: The AIGA Online Journal of Graphic Design, and writes for Baseline, Design Observer, Eye, Grafik, I.D., Metropolis, Print, and Step. Steven is the recipient of the Art Directors Club Special Educators Award, the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and the School of Visual Arts' Masters Series Award.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had to pick one artist that I think personified 60's pop-art it would be Milton Glaser. I can remember going to a used book store in the late 70's and early 80's and looking at the section with all the 60's paperbacks; so many of those books caught my eye because of his unique and vibrant illustrations. I ❤ NY is probably his best known work...iconic as iconic can be.

[Shtwaan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great compendium of work, terrible reproductions. The production team's idea of color management was to handle the yellowing of the paper as a color in itself. Instead of separating it and bringing it back the original white backgrounds, and THEN working on the colors as necessary, they just boosted everything. As a result, every other image looks like it has been soaked in dog pee for months. Glowing yellow all around, and some white floating at the center. It is hideous, moronic, MIND-NUMBINGLY AMATEURISH. I could have produced better reproductions on my home PC and a few Photoshop actions. It not only spoils the original designs, making you wonder how Glaser intended them to look, but it creates wild inconsistency across the featured serialized works (book and record cover series). What should have been pristinely clean and unified, looks like random image grabs from eBay sellers. The cover itself is substandard: the graphic is borderline blurry, especially in relation to the title lettering. These are the days when the millenials are taking over in every productive sector. In art book publishing it looks like this. There is no way the old guard would have had allowed such TRASH JOB to hit the market.