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Glaser attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and went on to study at Cooper Union. After graduating in 1951, Glaser received a Fulbright to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, where he worked under the renowned modernist Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, who proved to be hugely influential to the young designer. Of Morandi’s work, Glaser says that it “slows the eye, asking it to give up its inattention, its restless scanning, and to give full weight to something small…[it] provides a lesson in seeing.”

While at Cooper Union, Glaser met his future collaborators Edward Sorel and Seymour Chwast; after Glaser returned from Bologna, they went on to form (along with Reynold Ruffins) the influential Push Pin Studios in 1954, a graphic design firm that re-introduced playfulness, historical motifs and a youthful energy to the staid styles that had reigned in graphic design since the early 20th century. The studio also began publishing the monthly experimental, freeform magazine Push Pin Graphic in 1957, which covered everything from the writings of Franz Kafka, the anxiety of nuclear war, and fishing. Push Pin Studio’s irreverence and eclecticism reflected the changing American culture and set a precedence for what contemporary graphic design would become in the latter half of the century.

In 1968, Glaser, along with Clay Felker, founded New York magazine; similar to Push Pin Graphic, New York celebrated the highs and lows of American culture (with equal aplomb), appealed to young, restless intellectuals and was visually audacious. Glaser served as the art director until 1977 and was known for his regular column, “Underground Gourmet”, which covered all the cheap eats to be found in New York.

Glaser left Push Pin in 1974 to establish Milton Glaser, Inc.; he wasted no time further establishing himself as a leading figure in the design community. In 1977, he designed the iconic I ♥️ NY logo and, for the five decades that followed, brought his cerebral approachability to corporate identities, restaurant interiors, public spaces, exhibition design, publications (under his firm WBMG with Walter Bernard), posters, cultural institutions and even children’s books with his wife Shirley. Glaser’s impact in shaping the language and landscape of American design cannot be overstated; his now-famous mantra art is work is reflected in the generosity of his output and embodies the uniquely American attitude that leads you to further the equation to: art is work is life; Glaser made a life out of making things for the benefit of humanity to look at, meditate upon, and incorporate into our collective selfhood.

Glaser’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1975) and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1977) and is held in prestigious collections throughout the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, D.C., the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt in 2004 and was the first designer to be awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2009. Glaser passed away in June of 2020, on his 91st birthday.