Lessons We Learned from Milton Glaser in His Final Interview

Domestika visited Milton Glaser for what would be the last interview he gave in his studio, where he spoke about art, collaboration, and his purpose in life

As one of the most influential and celebrated graphic designers in history, even if you don’t know Milton Glaser’s name, you’ve certainly seen his work. In a career that spanned almost seven decades, he applied his talents to everything from branding, to editorial and interior design, creating iconic imagery that has shaped our visual landscape.

In late 2019, Domestika had the privilege of visiting Glaser for what would be the last interview he gave in his New York studio. In this video he shares his thoughts on creativity, collaboration, and his purpose in life.

Here, we celebrate his life and work by sharing a few of the iconic projects he created during his impressive career.

In 1966, CBS Records commissioned Glaser to design a poster to be packaged with the “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” album, of which 6 million or more were distributed. Rendering the musician’s hair in colorful swirling waves, evocative of the psychedelic drugs gaining popularity in the counterculture, he contrasted these saturated colors against a clean black and white silhouette. Drawing inspiration from a Marcel Duchamp’s self portrait and from the Art Nouveau movement, this iconic poster remains an in-demand collectible.

In 1968, Glaser co-founded New York Magazine, designing the publication’s logo and serving as its president and design director for the following nine years. His work during that time with Walter Bernard has gone on to shape the look and feel of publications as we know them. To learn more about their work, and how they became pioneers in the world of editorial design, you can watch Domestika’s profile of these Mag Men.

Commissioned in 1977 by New York State and intended as a short-term advertising campaign to encourage tourism in New York City, Glaser’s “I Love New York” logo was such a success that it continues to endure more than 40 years later. If you’re interested in learning more about the origins of the logo, you can watch Domestika’s Maestros interview with Glaser.

Glaser contributed to the rising awareness of the AIDS epidemic during the 80s through his evocative poster, designed for the World Health Organisation. Released in 1987 and featuring two halves of a heart joined together by an image of a skull, the stark image was accompanied by the message “AIDS: A Worldwide Effort Will Stop It” and served as part of a larger global awareness campaign.

Before craft beer became the lucrative market it is today, Glaser collaborated with Brooklyn Brewery to create a logo and brand that would go on to be internationally recognized. The brewery’s relationship with Glaser helped them to gain popularity through word of mouth, and his logo, which draws on German beer labels but adds a friendly typographic twist, continues to feel fresh nearly three decades later.

While the design world mourns the loss of an icon, Glaser’s powerful work lives on, and his impact on generations of designers continues to enrich our visual landscape in a fitting tribute to his creativity and talent.

As he mused during that final studio interview, “If you were to say, finally, what was my purpose in life… it would be to have learned and passed it on.”

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