A Charmed Life in Art

We at Big Think have rarely interviewed someone more sanguine than legendary graphic artist Milton Glaser. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise: ever since a small promotional assignment for the city of New York—the “I Love New York” logo—became the classic image of the world’s cultural capital, he has found a career that has been rewarding financially, artistically, and personally.

Aside from charting his own course and sharing his advice for young designers, Glaser gave his gloomy opinion on recent technology-enabled trends such as magazines moving to the web and crowd-sourced design. He even told Big Think the secret to what makes “fine art” so special.

In a career straddling the fields of so-called “fine art” and commercial design, Glaser has a unique insight and interest in the two fields. What sets great art apart, he says, is its ability to break a person out of their preconceived notions of the world and be “drawn to attentiveness” about the truths of reality. It’s a particularly apt definition for today’s distracted world.

Glaser shared several other insights in this wide-ranging discussion: he described what keeps him up at night, his biggest obstacle, and his love affair with Woodstock, NY.