The founder of the world-famous “I love New York” logo is dead: Milton Glaser died on his 91st birthday in Manhattan on Friday (local time), the “New York Times” announced, quoting his wife Shirley.
The origin was an involuntary stroke, and Glaser also suffered renal disease. Glaser, born 1929 in New York’s Bronx area, was one of the best-known and most successful artists in the country. He was one of the creators of “New York Magazine,” designed the Brooklyn Brewery logo and produced over 400 posters that can be used today in museums around the world.
In 2009, Glaser was given the National Medal of Arts, the United States government’s most prestigious art prize. He had worked in his office at the Empire State Building until the end-and after decades of painting, even tried his hand at the keyboard.
“We lost a brilliant designer and great New Yorker,” said State Governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday morning. “What Milton Glaser gave New York will survive for a long time.” The “I love New York” logo is still the perfect emblem for the city. The “New York Magazine” co-founded by Glaser wrote: He loved the city and celebrated it with the magazine, the posters and the logo.
Throughout the 1970s Glaser visualized the phrase “I love New York” on behalf of the New York administration. The black lettering is reported to have happened to Glaser during a taxi trip with the red heart and the abbreviation “NY” Today the first sketch he painted on the back of an envelope is hanging in Manhattan’s “Museum of Modern Art.”
In the 1970s, Glaser had received just $2,000 for the logo. The emblem became part of a marketing campaign aimed at attracting more tourists into New York state. Yet it quickly became a landmark of the same-named region-and produced the worldwide breakthrough for Glaser.
Tens of thousands of T-shirts printed with the logo were sold after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The porters expressed their unity with the metropolitan region. At potentially all souvenir shops in New York today the lettering can be seen on mugs, postcards and key fobs.
