The Mind Creative
The resulting negative publicity from all this resulted in tourists
keeping away from the city and forced the New York State
Department for Economic Development to knock on the doors of
Wells Rich Greene, an advertising firm on Madison Avenue. They
were subsequently commissioned to start work on a touristfriendly advertising campaign for the Big Apple.
The “I LOVE NEW YORK” commercial
At this point in time, Milton Glaser
was recruited by the Department
for Economic Development to work
with Rich Greene on logo design
options. Till then, Glaser’s CV
included a portrait of Bob Dylan on
his album, the design of New
York magazine (which he founded
in 1968) and the visual identity of
the restaurant in the World Trade
Center.
During one of the meetings, Glaser pulled a craggy piece of paper
out of his pocket with a doodle that he had done during a recent
cab ride. The crumpled pieces of paper was in fact the back of an
envelope, on which he had scribbled the logo that the world knows
so well today. Once the concept of the logo was accepted, Glaser
started work its detailed design that included the stacking of the
characters and finalizing the typeface for the characters. Strangely
enough Glaser did the work entirely pro bono. He simply wanted
the glory of New York to be restored to its former state.
Milton Glaser’s original sketch
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