Milton Glaser: The Personification Of The 20th Century

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Milton Glaser is the personification of American graphic design of the 20th century. He has influenced many and impacted the profession internationally. Milton Glaser is exceedingly creative and effective in his work.

Bob Dylan’s poster was created by Milton Glaser in 1967 for the artist’s greatest hits album. The poster features the musician’s side profile as a silhouette with his hair shaped into many different curves and filled in with vibrant colours. This is an ingenious way of designing, as many people who are fans of Bob Dylan would instantly recognise him from his big, slightly wavy hair. His name ‘Dylan’ is also included at the bottom right of the poster in a ‘block’ type typeface which Milton himself created as well. The famous poster was influenced by Marcel Duchamp’s self portrait which was created in 1957, about 10 years before the iconic poster was created.

“This silhouette cutout by Marcel Duchamp was in the back of my mind when I created the Dylan poster. This particular piece is probably the most familiar of my works, if only for the fact that nearly six million were produced for enclosure in a Dylan album” From Graphic Design, by Milton Glaser, http://www.101bananas.com/art/dylan.html.

According to the artist Milton Glaser, other significant graphic elements to this piece from Marcel Duchamp’s portrait is the quality, shape and also colour.
Marcel used torn paper as his medium on velvet covered paperboard while Milton’s was offset lithograph.
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