Milton Glazer: A Pioneering American Graphic Artist

Milton Glazer was an incredibly important American graphic artist, widely regarded as one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. Born in New York City, Glazer's work had a profound impact on the city's visual identity and culture. One of his most iconic creations is the "I Heart NY" logo, which he designed out of whole cloth and gifted to the city of New York. Interestingly, Glazer never saw a penny from this campaign, highlighting his selfless dedication to the art of design.

Glazer's career spanned several decades, during which he worked with numerous prominent clients and studios. He was one of the "Mad Men" in the late 1950s and early 1960s in New York City, where he honed his skills as a graphic designer. Glazer's work is characterized by its innovative use of typography, color, and composition, which helped to define the visual identity of several major brands.

One notable example of Glazer's work is his piece on how success can be both a blessing and a curse. According to Glazer, when you become successful at something, people will keep asking you to do it, even if you don't want to. This can lead to a point where you're confronted with continuing to do the same thing because of your success, rather than for its own sake. Glazer emphasizes the importance of embracing change and moving on from successes, as this allows you to avoid stagnation and continue creating work that is intellectually stimulating and creatively fulfilling.

This principle is reflected in Glazer's teaching philosophy, which he shared with his students over several decades. He encouraged them to be aware of the need to move beyond their areas of expertise and explore new creative pursuits. This approach has proven valuable for many artists and designers, who have gone on to achieve great success by expanding their skills and interests.

How I Build Stuff: A Personal Perspective

As someone who has built a career around creative work, I've developed a number of habits that help me stay inspired and motivated. One key part of my workflow is taking photos of my projects at the end of each day. These snapshots provide a sense of closure and allow me to reflect on what I've accomplished. Recently, I've been using these photos as a way to explore new ideas and techniques.

For example, I've been Mooning through (reviewing) photos of my tested offices, looking for ways to improve their design and functionality. This process has helped me refine my creative vision and identify areas where I can push the boundaries of what's possible. By regularly reviewing my work in this way, I'm able to stay focused on what matters most: creating something that is both functional and beautiful.

The Freelance Dilemma: Cutting Out the Middleman

As a freelancer, I've encountered several clients who have tried to employ me directly, rather than working through their existing company. This can be a tricky situation, as it requires careful consideration of my relationships with both parties.

In one instance, I was approached by Home Alone 3's production team, who asked if I'd be willing to build a side project while I was already working full-time for another client, Jamie. Rather than complicating the situation, I simply went to Jamie and explained the proposal. Jamie's response was remarkably understanding, and he even offered me the opportunity to bid on the project directly.

This experience highlights the importance of maintaining healthy relationships with clients, both as a freelancer and as an employee. While it's true that you shouldn't be afraid to walk away from a bad client or deal, it's also essential to manage these situations carefully to avoid burning bridges.

The Value of Perception

In another instance, I bid on a project for Jamie, just as I would have if he had simply referred me to his company. However, the commercial director at the time told me that they thought they were getting out cheaper by going with me directly. While this may seem like a minor detail, it's actually an important example of how perception can matter in business.

In this case, the client's assumption was that I would charge them less than Jamie had originally offered me. However, as we later discovered, the actual cost was identical – albeit for different reasons. The difference lay in the way we were perceived by the client, and the value they placed on my services. This experience taught me that perception is a powerful tool in business, and that it's often more important to focus on delivering high-quality work than on worrying about who's paying what.

Conclusion

As I continue to build and create, I'm constantly reminded of the importance of staying inspired, motivated, and connected to my creative vision. By taking photos of my projects, Mooning through photos of tested offices, and focusing on building strong relationships with clients, I'm able to stay focused on what matters most: creating something that is both functional and beautiful.

Whether you're a seasoned freelancer or an emerging artist, these principles can help guide your own creative journey. By embracing change, staying curious, and delivering high-quality work, you'll be well on your way to achieving success in your field.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enuh Stephanie Stanton says a few years ago she read Chris hadfield's book an astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth one of the great book titles um and she says Hadfield mentions each of his professional iterations that he loved his job so much he could kept doing it forever and then a new incredible opportunity came along and he took it like for reference he was like in the military and then he was a pilot and then he was he decided if he wanted to be an astronaut which was not something a Canadian could easily do he should probably go to the Top Gun school which is also not something that a Canadian often did but he did go and then he came in first in his class and then he became an astronaut yeah hadfield's a unique mutant um but Stephanie Stanton says I now have a role on team I really enjoy and my boss and friends and family have asked me what's next for the first time I'm content to do this forever and then the question is in your professional life how do you handle the contentment of your current role with preparing for and keeping an open mind about New Opportunities that's great great great great question um so I'm just going to say that your question also has an answer um how do you handle the contentment of your current role with preparing for and keeping an open mind about New Opportunities I will say my answer is you handle the contentment of your current role by keeping an open mind but you're asking how um it's not our life comes in waves um it's not static and it's not constant it does this right and so when you're content in a role it's not like you're in a valley but you're in a you're in a stasis and a stasis like a crisis they are both liminal States they're both between things right like stasis doesn't sound like it's between things but like stasis is going to be broken by crisis um so I felt this when I first got to ilm when I first got to industrial Light and Magic it's 1998 I was in my early 30s I felt like I died and gone to heaven I had been prepared I didn't quite realize that I'd been preparing my whole life to be there and then I got there and it was even better than I thought it could have been and I spent two whole years just kind of floating and it was hard to let go of that what's next what's next but it wasn't there it wasn't showing up I was I was as you say just like perfectly content and then okay so my tenure at ilm is fairly short it's 1998 mid 98 to ER to uh late O3 yeah it's like four and a half five years um and about halfway in there about two and a half three years in I realized that was V dropping I was about two and a half three years in and I I realized that oh I kind of want a little more than this yeah and I was it was mostly just like I had built some spaceships I had I had done sort of a whole bunch of the things I had always wanted to do on a Star Wars movie I'd been in a meeting with George I'd seen some incredible things I'd built some things I'd solved problems for Academy Award winners Edmund thanked directly for it like everything was amazing and in dealing with the art Department that's I think what happened is as I as I matured in the shop at ilm uh you know I started spending more time working directly with my art director or my production designer getting more freedom getting more latitude um and once I started to really be wheeled into the big picture I found that I wanted more of the big picture that's literally how it happened in my head was like I want to play at a bigger scale than this like this is really great but it is a specific scale doing this kind of model making and I would like to expand that and I remember saying that to somebody at the time and getting dragged for it a couple days later at Friday beers I mean let's see I mean this person I told yeah here's how this happened around that time it was announced that ilm was going to move to the Letterman complex in the Presidio in San Francisco and I still knew that was two or three years away but I said to this co-worker I I'm not sure that I'll be here when it moves over there and they were like where will you be and I'm like I don't know I'm just kind of interested in playing at a bigger scale than this literally that's how I said it cut to Friday beers he pays me out he like tells everyone Adam thinks he's gonna go off and you know save the world or something he like really trashed me about it I I didn't take that personally that's fine um but so what I want to say to you then Stephanie is enjoy the contentment in your current role and keep on looking at what you're doing and asking if it's really still is enjoyable because my assumption is as people we are it's sorry it's this but it's also this on an upward trajectory it I I really do think that the older we get the smarter we get we get to know ourselves better we get to know each other better we get better at taking care of each other um I I view all of this everything that we're talking about everything I've ever said or done on this channel all exists under the rubric of a process of self-discovery um because in my opinion uh in order to get good at something and to get better at something you have to get past the biggest obstacle which is your own dumb brain and when you do that you do that by learning how it works and not tricking it but just like getting past that um there is a there is so again that stasis is temporary the stasis and contentment you feel it's always temporary because I think as humans we're natural explorers um I want to talk about liminal spaces for a second liminal is such a beautiful word liminal spaces means an in-between space um you know I was in a liminal space for the at least six months after I wrapped MythBusters I wasn't doing the next thing I wasn't doing the old thing sort of in the midst uh and rilka and uh broke a Rainer Maria Roka is a poet from the turn of the 19th century a wonderful wonderful poet uh who at one point corresponded with a young poet and his rilka's letters Rook is half of that correspondence is published in a book called letters to a young poet one of my favorite books one of the most seminal books for me in like a little little chapters in my head about how to think about the world and one of them is he talks to his young poet about the young poet has I don't know been broken up with and he's really sad and rilka says I'm gonna paraphrase this but I'm trying to get it close rokus says I think we find all of our moments of sadness terrifying because we are standing in a place we can't remain standing that liminal space he says the past has left us and is no longer part of us but the future has not yet taken home and here we are in this place without a past and not yet with a future and rilka then councils this is why he says it is so important to be quote lonely and attentive when one is sad now the translation I have says lonely and attentive they don't all have that um I favor a particular uh uh version of the translation I'm going to try and find it after this live stream and put it up on Twitter or X or whatever um we find ourselves standing in a place we cannot remain standing and this is why he says it is so important to remain lonely and attentive when one is sad because that is the moment when the future takes hold in you and I I believe that I have proven that to my satisfaction for myself and I don't just say when one is sad but when everyone is I I view it as really vital part of the process that I do is that I am lonely and attentive at those moments that are transitional uh and I'm attentive to what's working what's not working how it feels and I really love this idea he says the future takes hold in you there it's like this shell that you're building comes around you Wilco then points out that at some point in the future there'll be a quote noisy and fortuitous time the future seems to come from outside but he's right I think that the groundwork happens there so uh Stephanie just be lonely and attentive in that job you are super content with and do a fantastic job at it and keep doing a fantastic job at it but keep asking yourself is this enough that's a really really wonderful and vital question and it's our luxury to be able to ask that and answer no that is a key Grace if you are able to do that good luck oh there's one other thing about complacency that I wrote at the top of this and it's about Milton Glazer um oh that's a call I will look forward to having later um Milton Glaser was an incredibly important American graphic artist uh I heart New York arguably the very first Emoji is Milton Glazer's creation out of whole cloth and a gift to New York it was he never saw a penny from the I Heart New York campaign Milton worked with and for my dad back in the early days uh back when they were mad men in the late 50s and 60s in New York City and Milton literally I mean that if you want to Google him it's astounding the the breadth of his and depth of his Brilliance through 20th century latter 20th century advertising art and he has this wonderful piece that I found a few years ago about how when you get really successful at something it's what people are going to keep asking you to do and so there's a point at which you're going to be confronted with continuing to do this thing because you're successful at it even though you don't want to do it anymore and that actually the better you get it stuff and the more that happens the more it's gonna happen and Milton who taught for decades uh told his students you've got to embrace moving on from your successes to the next thing it is vital to do that because you don't want to be asked to keep doing the same thing for this for a new client because it's not it's not an intellectually challenging it's not creatively challenging and when it's not challenging in those ways you're not going to turn out work that sings to you and work that sings to you can totally surprise you okay I'm going to give you an example um I talk about here on the Channel How I build stuff and when I'm really clicking with building stuff I'll take a picture of it at the end of the day and I'll go home and I like Moon through my uh Moon through pictures on my phone of what I have built I forgot to look at live questions during this because I do not disturb turned off anyway I'll Moon through questions and lately I've been gussying up the tested offices and I was going home at night and mooning over photos of the offices and I realized oh this is exactly that this is my creative Endeavor right now is cleaning up these offices Austin Squire asks a great question as a freelancer have you ever had a client who employed a company you worked for try to employ you directly yes I have how do you cut out the middleman without sacrificing the relationship you don't you don't cut out the middleman uh I just mean it's not cut and dry so it happened to me on Home Alone 3 where one of the key supervisors asked me if I'd be willing to build a side project while I was building stuff under full-time employment for Jamie and I just went right to Jamie and I was like dude just asked me if I wanted to build this thing Jamie was like go do it if you want to he didn't take it personally which was one of the ways in which Jamie was a phenomenal boss um and a phenomenal freelancer but the as a freelancer everything is about your relationships and that goes both ways if a client is really terrible stop working for them it's not what their their money isn't worth it that can really be the case I think I said that even last week um but you don't burn those bridges lightly and you can burn them quickly you can burn them quickly honestly there were times when I was working in shops where a client stopping to speak to me at my desk could cause my boss to scream at me so you got to be really careful with that stuff um I will say that after I stopped working full-time for Jamie a commercial director called me up and said I'd like to go with you instead of going with Jamie because I think it'll be less expensive I'm like fair enough that they don't have a duty to go get Jamie to bid on jobs the funny thing was maybe you see where this is going I bid for Jamie so I just bid the job for them the way I would have bid it for Jamie and they paid me exactly what I think they would have ended up paying Jamie but they thought they were getting out cheaper the perception mattered thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the scenes photos of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct questions during my live streams and we have some members only videos including the atom Real Time series of unbroken unedited shots of me working here in the shop they are weirdly meditative thank you guys so much I'll see you on the next oneuh Stephanie Stanton says a few years ago she read Chris hadfield's book an astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth one of the great book titles um and she says Hadfield mentions each of his professional iterations that he loved his job so much he could kept doing it forever and then a new incredible opportunity came along and he took it like for reference he was like in the military and then he was a pilot and then he was he decided if he wanted to be an astronaut which was not something a Canadian could easily do he should probably go to the Top Gun school which is also not something that a Canadian often did but he did go and then he came in first in his class and then he became an astronaut yeah hadfield's a unique mutant um but Stephanie Stanton says I now have a role on team I really enjoy and my boss and friends and family have asked me what's next for the first time I'm content to do this forever and then the question is in your professional life how do you handle the contentment of your current role with preparing for and keeping an open mind about New Opportunities that's great great great great question um so I'm just going to say that your question also has an answer um how do you handle the contentment of your current role with preparing for and keeping an open mind about New Opportunities I will say my answer is you handle the contentment of your current role by keeping an open mind but you're asking how um it's not our life comes in waves um it's not static and it's not constant it does this right and so when you're content in a role it's not like you're in a valley but you're in a you're in a stasis and a stasis like a crisis they are both liminal States they're both between things right like stasis doesn't sound like it's between things but like stasis is going to be broken by crisis um so I felt this when I first got to ilm when I first got to industrial Light and Magic it's 1998 I was in my early 30s I felt like I died and gone to heaven I had been prepared I didn't quite realize that I'd been preparing my whole life to be there and then I got there and it was even better than I thought it could have been and I spent two whole years just kind of floating and it was hard to let go of that what's next what's next but it wasn't there it wasn't showing up I was I was as you say just like perfectly content and then okay so my tenure at ilm is fairly short it's 1998 mid 98 to ER to uh late O3 yeah it's like four and a half five years um and about halfway in there about two and a half three years in I realized that was V dropping I was about two and a half three years in and I I realized that oh I kind of want a little more than this yeah and I was it was mostly just like I had built some spaceships I had I had done sort of a whole bunch of the things I had always wanted to do on a Star Wars movie I'd been in a meeting with George I'd seen some incredible things I'd built some things I'd solved problems for Academy Award winners Edmund thanked directly for it like everything was amazing and in dealing with the art Department that's I think what happened is as I as I matured in the shop at ilm uh you know I started spending more time working directly with my art director or my production designer getting more freedom getting more latitude um and once I started to really be wheeled into the big picture I found that I wanted more of the big picture that's literally how it happened in my head was like I want to play at a bigger scale than this like this is really great but it is a specific scale doing this kind of model making and I would like to expand that and I remember saying that to somebody at the time and getting dragged for it a couple days later at Friday beers I mean let's see I mean this person I told yeah here's how this happened around that time it was announced that ilm was going to move to the Letterman complex in the Presidio in San Francisco and I still knew that was two or three years away but I said to this co-worker I I'm not sure that I'll be here when it moves over there and they were like where will you be and I'm like I don't know I'm just kind of interested in playing at a bigger scale than this literally that's how I said it cut to Friday beers he pays me out he like tells everyone Adam thinks he's gonna go off and you know save the world or something he like really trashed me about it I I didn't take that personally that's fine um but so what I want to say to you then Stephanie is enjoy the contentment in your current role and keep on looking at what you're doing and asking if it's really still is enjoyable because my assumption is as people we are it's sorry it's this but it's also this on an upward trajectory it I I really do think that the older we get the smarter we get we get to know ourselves better we get to know each other better we get better at taking care of each other um I I view all of this everything that we're talking about everything I've ever said or done on this channel all exists under the rubric of a process of self-discovery um because in my opinion uh in order to get good at something and to get better at something you have to get past the biggest obstacle which is your own dumb brain and when you do that you do that by learning how it works and not tricking it but just like getting past that um there is a there is so again that stasis is temporary the stasis and contentment you feel it's always temporary because I think as humans we're natural explorers um I want to talk about liminal spaces for a second liminal is such a beautiful word liminal spaces means an in-between space um you know I was in a liminal space for the at least six months after I wrapped MythBusters I wasn't doing the next thing I wasn't doing the old thing sort of in the midst uh and rilka and uh broke a Rainer Maria Roka is a poet from the turn of the 19th century a wonderful wonderful poet uh who at one point corresponded with a young poet and his rilka's letters Rook is half of that correspondence is published in a book called letters to a young poet one of my favorite books one of the most seminal books for me in like a little little chapters in my head about how to think about the world and one of them is he talks to his young poet about the young poet has I don't know been broken up with and he's really sad and rilka says I'm gonna paraphrase this but I'm trying to get it close rokus says I think we find all of our moments of sadness terrifying because we are standing in a place we can't remain standing that liminal space he says the past has left us and is no longer part of us but the future has not yet taken home and here we are in this place without a past and not yet with a future and rilka then councils this is why he says it is so important to be quote lonely and attentive when one is sad now the translation I have says lonely and attentive they don't all have that um I favor a particular uh uh version of the translation I'm going to try and find it after this live stream and put it up on Twitter or X or whatever um we find ourselves standing in a place we cannot remain standing and this is why he says it is so important to remain lonely and attentive when one is sad because that is the moment when the future takes hold in you and I I believe that I have proven that to my satisfaction for myself and I don't just say when one is sad but when everyone is I I view it as really vital part of the process that I do is that I am lonely and attentive at those moments that are transitional uh and I'm attentive to what's working what's not working how it feels and I really love this idea he says the future takes hold in you there it's like this shell that you're building comes around you Wilco then points out that at some point in the future there'll be a quote noisy and fortuitous time the future seems to come from outside but he's right I think that the groundwork happens there so uh Stephanie just be lonely and attentive in that job you are super content with and do a fantastic job at it and keep doing a fantastic job at it but keep asking yourself is this enough that's a really really wonderful and vital question and it's our luxury to be able to ask that and answer no that is a key Grace if you are able to do that good luck oh there's one other thing about complacency that I wrote at the top of this and it's about Milton Glazer um oh that's a call I will look forward to having later um Milton Glaser was an incredibly important American graphic artist uh I heart New York arguably the very first Emoji is Milton Glazer's creation out of whole cloth and a gift to New York it was he never saw a penny from the I Heart New York campaign Milton worked with and for my dad back in the early days uh back when they were mad men in the late 50s and 60s in New York City and Milton literally I mean that if you want to Google him it's astounding the the breadth of his and depth of his Brilliance through 20th century latter 20th century advertising art and he has this wonderful piece that I found a few years ago about how when you get really successful at something it's what people are going to keep asking you to do and so there's a point at which you're going to be confronted with continuing to do this thing because you're successful at it even though you don't want to do it anymore and that actually the better you get it stuff and the more that happens the more it's gonna happen and Milton who taught for decades uh told his students you've got to embrace moving on from your successes to the next thing it is vital to do that because you don't want to be asked to keep doing the same thing for this for a new client because it's not it's not an intellectually challenging it's not creatively challenging and when it's not challenging in those ways you're not going to turn out work that sings to you and work that sings to you can totally surprise you okay I'm going to give you an example um I talk about here on the Channel How I build stuff and when I'm really clicking with building stuff I'll take a picture of it at the end of the day and I'll go home and I like Moon through my uh Moon through pictures on my phone of what I have built I forgot to look at live questions during this because I do not disturb turned off anyway I'll Moon through questions and lately I've been gussying up the tested offices and I was going home at night and mooning over photos of the offices and I realized oh this is exactly that this is my creative Endeavor right now is cleaning up these offices Austin Squire asks a great question as a freelancer have you ever had a client who employed a company you worked for try to employ you directly yes I have how do you cut out the middleman without sacrificing the relationship you don't you don't cut out the middleman uh I just mean it's not cut and dry so it happened to me on Home Alone 3 where one of the key supervisors asked me if I'd be willing to build a side project while I was building stuff under full-time employment for Jamie and I just went right to Jamie and I was like dude just asked me if I wanted to build this thing Jamie was like go do it if you want to he didn't take it personally which was one of the ways in which Jamie was a phenomenal boss um and a phenomenal freelancer but the as a freelancer everything is about your relationships and that goes both ways if a client is really terrible stop working for them it's not what their their money isn't worth it that can really be the case I think I said that even last week um but you don't burn those bridges lightly and you can burn them quickly you can burn them quickly honestly there were times when I was working in shops where a client stopping to speak to me at my desk could cause my boss to scream at me so you got to be really careful with that stuff um I will say that after I stopped working full-time for Jamie a commercial director called me up and said I'd like to go with you instead of going with Jamie because I think it'll be less expensive I'm like fair enough that they don't have a duty to go get Jamie to bid on jobs the funny thing was maybe you see where this is going I bid for Jamie so I just bid the job for them the way I would have bid it for Jamie and they paid me exactly what I think they would have ended up paying Jamie but they thought they were getting out cheaper the perception mattered thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the scenes photos of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct questions during my live streams and we have some members only videos including the atom Real Time series of unbroken unedited shots of me working here in the shop they are weirdly meditative thank you guys so much I'll see you on the next one\n"