When a design enthused with affection and love for your home town becomes known around the world, you are likely on to something good.
And so it was for Milton Glaser, the pioneering graphic designer whose “I (HEART) NY,” design became iconic, and who has died at the age of 91.
He passed away in the New York borough of Manhattan on Friday, his birthday.
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His wife, Shirley Glaser, told the New York Time s the cause of death was a stroke. Glaser had also been suffering from renal failure.
Glaser was known for many things – for creating a design for Bob Dylan that layered the musician with psychedelic hair, for designing a logo for the Brooklyn Brewery, and for magazine covers and designs in the 1960s that defined an era.
Glaser was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2009 (Getty)
Yet, it was perhaps his illustrative paean for the city and state in which he was born – Glaser was born in 1929 in the Bronx and studied at New York’s Cooper Union art school and in Italy – for which he will be best remembered.
The bold “I (HEART) NY” logo, using a typewriter-style font, was conjured up as part of an advertising campaign started in 1977 to boost the state’s image when crime and budget troubles dominated media headlines. Glaser did the design free of charge.
Days after 9/11, two decades later, Glaser updated it, adding a dark scar to the red heart and “more than ever” to the message.
“I woke up Wednesday morning and said, ‘God, I have to do something to respond to this’,” he told the Times .
“When you have a heart attack, part of your heart dies. When you recover, part of your heart is gone, but the people in your life become much more important, and there is a greater awareness of the value of things.”
Glaser had done design work for the restaurants at the destroyed World Trade Centre complex.
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A woman looks on during a protest against the killing of George Floyd in Osaka city, western Japan
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Riot police try to control pro-democracy supporters at a rally in Causeway Bay district, Hong Kong
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EPA
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Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca during the early hours of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday which starts at the conclusion of the holy fasting month of Ramadan
AFP via Getty
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EPA
36/50 22 May 2020
Firefighters spray water on the wreckage of a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft after it crashed into a residential area in Karachi
AFP via Getty
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Yonhap/AP
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Firefighters fighting a fire at a plastics factory in front of a huge cloud of smoke in Ladenburg, Germany
dpa via AP
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Reuters
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Reuters
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Reuters
44/50 14 May 2020
A girl watches over goats on the banks of the Dal Lake during rainfall in Srinagar
AFP via Getty Images
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Reuters
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China Daily via Reuters
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AFP via Getty
48/50 10 May 2020
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Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the nation after laying flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin wall in Moscow, Russia. Russia marks the 75th anniversary since the capitulation of Nazi Germany in WWII amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
EPA
50/50 8 May 2020
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EPA
In 1954, he co-founded the innovative graphic design firm Push Pin Studios with Seymour Chwast and others. He stayed with it for 20 years before founding his own firm.
The Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum awarded him a lifetime achievement award in 2004.
In 2009, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, by Barack Obama.
“I just like to do everything, and I was always interested in seeing how far I could go in stretching the boundaries,” he said.
Additional reporting by Associated Press