From Booklist
From book jackets and LP covers to ad posters and soup cans, Glaser has designed them all. This new volume is his showcase. In the introduction, he suggests that we substitute the word
work for the word
art , in order to "restore art to a central, useful activity in daily life." By subverting commonplace words, objects, and symbols in his own work, Glaser has accomplished that goal. For example, his highly recognized I [love] NY ad campaign turned T-shirts and bumper stickers into a mass of moving canvases. A follow-up to his first collection published 25 years ago, the bountifully illustrated
Art Is Work outlines Glaser's career over the past quarter century. The work is good, according to his scale of art appraisal. And the several sequences showing how a drawing develops from the raw stage into its mature, final form demonstrate that for Glaser it was hard work, too.
Jeff SnowbargerCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product Description
In this major retrospective, Milton Glaser, one of the most influential figures in the history of international design, considers not only the current scene in a presentation of his work organized by format but concludes-in ardent response to the trivializing influences of technology and commerce-that art is a serious business, indeed.
Art is Work is at once a comprehensive overview of Milton Glaser's oeuvre and an intimate revelation of personal initiatives. With a text revealing process alongside more than 500 full-color illustrations, Glaser follows the development of his ideas through to their implementation and makes reference to alternative ideas, professional influences, and recurring themes.
The work of artists has been changed and often debased, Glaser argues, by a new orientation in business that weds it to technology. He reacquaints us with the principles that will always be central to design and addresses evolving ones that have emerged from the opportunities that technology can provide.
Examples of well-known projects abound-ranging from newspapers and magazines to toys, textiles, interiors, posters, and CD covers. If you've ever seen the menu at Windows on the World, used a bottle of ketchup from Grand Union, or read the playbill for Tony Kushner's Angels in America, you've been privy to the conceptual thinking of a powerful force in design.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.