Milton Glaser Graphic Design monograph (The Overlook Press)
Contributed by Chris Purcell on Jun 28th, 2020. Artwork published in
October 1973
.
This hefty (10½″×10½″×1⅜″) volume came out in 1973, when Glaser was just 44 years old — he had 48 more years left!
The cover shows a detail of his iconic “Dylan” poster, with Glaser Stencil used for the title. There are so many worthwhile images … the spread I’ve selected features several variations on his ever-popular Baby Teeth, as well as the sign he photographed in Mexico City that inspired the typeface.
His caption (set in Helvetica) reads in part:
It’s an advertisement for a tailor. The E was drawn as only someone unfamiliar with the alphabet could have conceived. Yet it is completely legible.
4 Comments on “Milton Glaser Graphic Design monograph (The Overlook Press)”
Thank you, Chris!
For those interested: The book is still available from Abrams Books (the publisher who maintains the Overlook Press imprint), in hardcover and paperback editions. The latter is a revision published in 1983, with a new preface by the author. The cover was slightly adjusted, too, with bigger type, but still in Glaser Stencil.
Image: Abrams Books.
In 1974, the book was also issued in German, French, and Italian editions and distributed by Graphic Books.
Thanks for posting so quickly, Florian.
In the same book, Glaser calls his stencil typeface 'Neo Futura’.
My copy is from the first printing in 1973. I think I got it when I was in college, around 1975 or so. In all these years, I never noticed until now that the N’s in Glaser Stencil on the cover are different from the commonly available version and kind of appears to be upside down.
It turns out that this is the original version available from Photo Lettering. There are other difference, too, like a different W and a second O with three breaks, and it was called Glaser Futura Stencil.
The other variations of Baby Teeth are also in the Photo Lettering catalogs.
I kinda wish Glaser had kept the triangle ‘I’ from his sign sample for Baby Teeth.