I Love NY Gifts Design

History of I Love NY design

New York officials are doggedly persistent in protecting what’s there’s, especially when it comes to the internationally recognized “I Love NY” logo. The trademark, which had been designed and endowed to the state free of charge by graphic designer Milton Glaser in 1976, attracts some 140 million tourists a year. State officials have filed a staggering 3,000 trademark objections since its conception over 40 years ago, as others have sought to incorporate the iconic design into I Love NY Gifts merchandise.

In the 1970s, when the city looked dramatically different from the tourist hub it is today, crime and poverty in the Big Apple ran rampant. To cleanse the city’s tarnished image and rejuvenate tourism, state officials turned to Madison Ave. firm Wells Riche Greene to launch a marketing campaign for NYC. Glaser was an outside hire specifically tasked with designing a logo to compliment Wells Rich Greene’s efforts on the TV advertising front. The iconic logo we know and love today originated from a doodle!

Glaser had sketched on the back of a crumpled piece of paper. Believing the logo would only be used for a limited period of time to give a recognizable face to NYC’s campaign to rid its image of looting and President Gerald Ford’s famous declaration to the Big Apple, summed up by the iconic New York Post headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Glazer did the work probono.