Virtual Memories Show 330:
Milton Glaser
“Everything is design. Design is planning. It’s having an objective of any kind. When you go out to dinner, you’re designing your meal. There’s no design without intent, and there’s no life without intent.”
He turned 90 a few weeks ago, but design legend Milton Glaser isn’t slowing down. We got together to talk about moving to a new studio after nearly 55 years and what he plans on doing with the 250,000 posters in the cellar. We get into art vs. design, why he painted “Art Is Work” on the transom of his building, how he’s working more actively and faster than he ever has, the first time he saw his work in public, how drawing makes us conscious of reality, the influence of Giorgio Morandi on his life, the joy of ~60 years of teaching, the decay of design into commodity and corporate metrics, and the overlooked role of Push Pin Studios in design history. Along the way, we also get into the worldwide phenomenon of his “I ♥ NY” design, what it’s like to live in an age of collage, where we find things instead of making things, how the computer can compel users into doing what it’s good at instead of what they’re good at, his marriage advice after 60+ years with Shirley Glaser, and his story about designing Trump Vodka. Give it a listen! And go buy some of Milton’s posters!
“Art is not about persuasion; it’s about transformation.”
“Capitalism produces the sense that the only thing that matters is wealth and fame, and that’s a terrible basis for culture.”
“I’ve been possessed by my work for a long time. I’m very old but I have a lot of energy for the work.”
“My mind, fortunately, has not degenerated to the same degree that newsprint paper does.”
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About our Guest
Milton Glaser (b.1929) is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States. He has had the distinction of one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center. He was selected for the lifetime achievement award of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in 2004 and the Fulbright Association in 2011, and in 2009 he was the first graphic designer to receive the National Medal of the Arts award. As a Fulbright scholar, Glaser studied with the painter Giorgio Morandi in Bologna, and is an articulate spokesman for the ethical practice of design. He opened Milton Glaser, Inc. in 1974, and continues to produce a prolific amount of work in many fields of design to this day.
(There are longer versions at his site)
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the offices of Milton Glaser Inc. on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones
, author 
, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal, and 
, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He teaches in Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and lives in New York City. His new book is the memoir, 
(Knopf), 
. We also discuss his foray into 
Nathan Englander
, an international best seller, and 
, and the novels 
and 
, a memoir-fiction hybrid about his family’s experience in the Shoah. We get into the myths of how his grandfather survived the concentration camps and what they meant for his family and his book, the years of detective work (and the lucky breaks) researching his grandparents’ stories and records and the limits of knowing anyone else’s life, the exceptionalist vibe of Czech Jews, the stories he was afraid to learn and the heroism that redeemed his great-grandmother and her family, the challenges of researching an unheard-of story of survival when archivists are already put off by your punk-rock appearance, and how Bram avoided Holocaust cliches while giving agency, dignity and social dynamics to the prisoners in the camps. We also get into Bram’s worries about feedback from his mentor Dasa Drndic, the value of documentary fiction, the aspects of his other careers that supported his ability to write 
(Fantagraphics Underground), and what he learned in the process of culling the selection of his work for the show. We get into the roots of his groundbreaking civil rights cartoons (and how he got away with making weed jokes in the Saturday Evening Post in 1965), his pioneering comics reportage, how his spontaneity and energy secretly come from laziness, the challenge of drawing people on NYC subways, his intense focus on the business side of cartooning (and how it might be tied into his late start as a cartoonist), and how he tied vacations and even his honeymoon into work assignments. 
, considered “the most comprehensive, authoritative book on the subject.”
.
