Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser was born in New York City in 1929. He studied at the Cooper Union Art School in New York and won a Fulbright scholarship to the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. In 1955 he co-founded Push Pin Studios with Seymour Chwast and Edward Sorel. As an illustrator and designer Glaser helped alter the course of American graphic design. In an era dominated by Swiss rationalism, the Push Pin style celebrated the eclectic and eccentric design of the passé past while it introduced a distinctly contemporary design vocabulary, with a wide range of work that included record sleeves, books, posters, corporate logotypes, font design and magazine formats. His pictorial eclecticism left a mark on a generation – so much so that his leaving Push Pin in 1974 was as significant an event in the design world as the Beatles break-up was in popular music. But Glaser had broader horizons. He was a founder of New York Magazine (as well as its ‘Underground gourmet’ – writing about good, cheap restaurants in New York), and publication design had become a big interest. Setting off on his own he founded Milton Glaser Inc., which devoted itself to multi-disciplinary design, including restaurant and supermarket design. A recent client is the Starbucks coffee-house chain. With Walter Bernard (former art director of Time) Glaser co-founded WBMG, a studio dedicated to magazine and newspaper design work. At the same time he turned his attention to painting and print-making. In addition, he has taught a design class at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York that has been one of America’s most respected programmes for over 30 years. Glaser’s magazine credits include Paris Match, L’Express and Village Voice.