Designer: Milton Glaser American

Item: YM. 02

Title: Big Nudes

The Designer - Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser was born in New York City on June 26, 1929. He was educated at the High School of Music and Art, New York; the Cooper Union Art School, New York, and later, via a Fulbright Scholarship, the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, Italy. In 1954, he and a number of classmates founded Pushpin Studios. For twenty years Glaser, together with Seymour Chwast, directed the organization, which exerted a powerful influence on the direction of world graphic design, culminating in a memorable exhibition at the Louvres Museum of Decorative Arts.

In 1968, Glaser and Clay Felker founded New York Magazine. The publication became the model for city magazines, and stimulated a host of imitations. In 1983, Glaser teamed with Walter Bernard to form WBMG, a publication design firm also located in the city. Since its inception, WBMG has redesigned many magazines. Milton Glaser, Inc. was established in 1974. The work produced compasses a wide range of design disciplines. In the area of print graphics, the studio produces identity programs. In the field of environmental and interior design, the firm has conceptualized and site-supervised the fabrication of numerous products, exhibitions, interiors and exteriors of restaurants, shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels, and other retail and commercial environments. Glaser is also personally responsible for the design and illustration of more than 300 posters.

Glaser's graphic and architectural commissions include the ILoveNY logo; the design of a 600-foot mural for the New Federal Office Building in Indianapolis; the complete graphic and decorative programs for the restaurants in the World Trade Center, New York, as well as the design of the Observation Deck and Permanent Exhibition for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. He has also designed a number of architectural projects including Sesame Palace, a children's educational play park in Pennsylvania.

For a period of fifteen years, Milton Glaser was involved with the re-design of a principal American supermarket, The Grand Union Company, a project that included all the company architecture, interiors, and packaging. He was responsible for the interior design and concept for the Triennale di Milano International Exhibition in Milan, on the theme of 'World Cities and the Future of the Metropolis', Glaser was responsible for the graphic program of the Rainbow Room complexes for the Rockefeller Center Management Corporation, New York. He also designed the World Health Organization's International AIDS symbol and poster. He was responsible for the graphic design, theming, and signage for Franklin Mills, a retail mall in Philadelphia; he completed the exterior, interior, and all graphic elements of Trattoria dell'Arte, one of several New York restaurants he has designed.

Milton Glaser, Inc. was responsible for the overall conceptualization and interior design of New York Unearthed, a museum located in Manhattan's South Street Seaport. Milton Glaser is at present design consultant to Stony Brook University, Screaming Media, Schlumberger Ltd., Brooklyn Brewery and a number of other businesses. Glaser's illustrations of Dante's Purgatory were exhibited at the Nuages Gallery in Milan, Italy.
A retrospective of Milton Glaser's work opened in Venice during the 2000 Carnival. Glaser's new book on design 'Art is Work' was published in November 2000. Two concurrent exhibitions were held at The American Institute of Graphic Arts and The Philadelphia Museum of Art.