Milton Glaser: Designer of I heart NY logo dies, aged 91

Bronx-born artist also created groundbreaking designs for Bob Dylan

The design was created in 1977, when the city and state of were going through tough times

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When a design enthused with affection and love for your home town becomes known around the world, you are likely on to something good.

And so it was for Milton Glaser, the pioneering graphic designer whose “I (HEART) NY,” design became iconic, and who has died at the age of 91.

He passed away in the New York borough of Manhattan on Friday, his birthday.

His wife, Shirley Glaser, told the New York Times the cause of death was a stroke. Glaser had also been suffering from renal failure.

Glaser was known for many things – for creating a design for Bob Dylan that layered the musician with psychedelic hair, for designing a logo for the Brooklyn Brewery, and for magazine covers and designs in the 1960s that defined an era.

Glaser was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2009

(Getty)

Yet, it was perhaps his illustrative paean for the city and state in which he was born – Glaser was born in 1929 in the Bronx and studied at New York’s Cooper Union art school and in Italy – for which he will be best remembered.

The bold “I (HEART) NY” logo, using a typewriter-style font, was conjured up as part of an advertising campaign started in 1977 to boost the state’s image when crime and budget troubles dominated media headlines. Glaser did the design free of charge.

Days after 9/11, two decades later, Glaser updated it, adding a dark scar to the red heart and “more than ever” to the message.

“I woke up Wednesday morning and said, ‘God, I have to do something to respond to this’,” he told the Times.

“When you have a heart attack, part of your heart dies. When you recover, part of your heart is gone, but the people in your life become much more important, and there is a greater awareness of the value of things.”

Glaser had done design work for the restaurants at the destroyed World Trade Centre complex.

In 1954, he co-founded the innovative graphic design firm Push Pin Studios with Seymour Chwast and others. He stayed with it for 20 years before founding his own firm.

The Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum awarded him a lifetime achievement award in 2004.

In 2009, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, by Barack Obama.

“I just like to do everything, and I was always interested in seeing how far I could go in stretching the boundaries,” he said.

Additional reporting by Associated Press