Telling The Truth--The Wit & Wisdom Of Milton Glaser

"Logic is not as powerful as intuition."

Here at Slow Burn Marketing, we love good advertising. Classic advertising. Advertising that enters the zeitgeist. Advertising that goes down in history. Advertising that sells, but does more than be salesy.
 
That kind of advertising often defies logic and is born of intuition. Some of the most potent advertising it's been our pleasure to create has defied logic and generated huge ROI--sometimes in the face of powerful people saying it would fail because it wasn't logical. ROI is the bets revenge. [Insert winky emoji here.]
 
 
"There are three responses to a piece of design: Yes, No and Wow! Wow is the one to aim for."

Last week, the world lost an advertising and marketing great. Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer, died of stroke and renal failure on his 91st birthday. Mr. Glaser's most enduring work is probably the "I Love NY" graphic. He admitted that even he was surprised at its durability over the decades. He had sketched it in a taxi cab and given it to the State of New York as a gift the survives to this day. 

One of Mr. Glaser's more "Wow" pieces would be the famous 1966 poster for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. Six million copies of that poster were distributed. It sells as a collectible for hundreds of dollars. And to hear Mr. Glaser himself discuss it decades later, he can be critical of his own work.

Less famous but arguably more "Wow" is Glaser's poster for The School of Visual Arts. It was designed to coincide with the United Nations World Summit on Poverty in 2005. It shows an image of a black hand bearing fingers the colors of the five races. Advertising Age said that the poster "expresses the need for empathy and a change of consciousness to deal with the overwhelming problem of political and social indifference to poverty."
 
In the same article, Glaser said, "For all of us in the communication business, the thought that another generation would look back at us and say, 'How could they have been so indifferent and callous to human suffering?' drove me to respond."
 
Is it any surprise that another of one Glaser's personal favorite quotes is, "Tell the truth."
 
 
"You can only work for people who you like."
 
We've all experienced trying to work for people we don't like. When I was working as a Creative Director in radio, there were times when a client was just unlikeable. Those clients rarely enjoyed the fruits of good work or good results. And sometimes, a client just has to be fired.
 
The faithful reader to the Weekly Screed knows that Honey Parker and I made a significant change in our own business the day we decided that we would only ever work for people with whom we'd look forward to having dinner. We get to do good work for people we like. It's better than paying the bills. It's fun. And you sleep well. 
 
 
"We are all born with genius. It's like our fairy godmother. But what happens in life is that we stop listening to our inner voices, and we no longer have access to this extraordinary ability to create poetry."
 
We all live and work in an enormous sandbox--and often don't know what to do with it. Creativity is normal. It is also hammered out of people by The System. Whatever it is you do, you've seen it in your line of work. You probably aren't a victim of it yourself. If you were, you probably wouldn't be reading this. But you've seen it around you.
 
Honey Parker and I have spoken to huge audiences about branding for small business. Our work is so obviously the result of play. We play on the stage. We make people laugh. We show how brand changes businesses and lives. And afterwards, someone from the audience will come to us and say, "That was great! But really, branding's not for my business, is it." [Face palm.]
 
Hunt down that inner voice and let 'er rip.
 
 
"We were excited by the very idea that we could use anything in the visual history of humankind as influence..."
 
When Milton Glaser started working professionally in the 1950s, he had been soaking up art influences from across Europe. When he returned to New York and began working for The Man, there was nothing about him that fit in a pigeonhole. Anything visual was an influence and informed his work as he saw fit. As the New York Times said in his obituary last week, "Mr. Glaser brought wit, whimsy, narrative and skilled drawing to commercial art."
 
Forget the "commercial art" part of that thought. Hone in on the wit. The whimsy. The narrative. The skill. Those things are in short supply. You're either in advertising or using advertising. Or both. You're allowed to access wit, whimsy, narrative and skill, whether your own or that you borrow from others. Feel free to bang the drum for them a little more. Feel free to use them when following Mr. Glaser's directive to "Tell the truth."
 
And while you're at it, you might enjoy banging the drum for intuition and how we're all African. And if you're drinking your morning coffee right now, join us in a toast to the late, great, modest Milton Glaser. His legacy represents marketing at its best--transcending offer and call to action to raise the bar for art and humanity, wit and whimsy.
 
If you'd like to see more of Mr. Glaser's portfolio, click here
Cheers,

Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in
Park City