In the Aftermath of 9/11, Milton Glaser, Creator of the 'I ♥ NY' Logo, Declared That He Loved New York City 'More Than Ever'

Eight days after 9/11, a familiar image greeted New Yorkers picking up a copy of the Daily News, the city’s self-proclaimed “hometown newspaper.” Emblazoned on the front page was Milton Glaser’s “I ♥ NY” logo—but as readers realized when unfolding the issue, the artist had made some changes to his ubiquitous design. It now proclaimed that Glaser loved New York City “more than ever,” with a bruise added to the red heart for emphasis. Glaser “was compelled to reach out and offer a statement to the city’s residents that, in spite of the tragedy, they still had each other,” Dan Bates, studio manager at Milton Glaser Inc., tells Smithsonian magazine.

The updated logo “was a declaration that the people and the affection they have for the city, and one another, endures.” Glaser debuted the original “I ♥ NY” design in 1977, as part of an advertising campaign for New York State. Governor Hugh Leo Carey had averted New York City’s bankruptcy crisis, but rising crime rates and a recent garbage strike continued to cloud the public’s view of the Big Apple. State officials “had nothing to help [New York’s] tourist program, no posters, no maps for gas stations, no bumper stickers for taxis and no money to make such things,” advertising executive Mary Wells Lawrence wrote in her 2002 memoir.

But he soon came up with a different design: Writing on an envelope during a taxi ride in 1976, the artist scrawled “I ♥ NY” on a single line in red crayon. (His concept sketch is now housed in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art.) A revised version launched the following year, with “I ♥” now stacked atop “NY.” A post shared by Milton Glaser (@miltonglaserinc) “It becomes much more of a shape, much stronger visually, than if it were running horizontally,” says Ellen Lupton, a curator emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Glaser’s font choice, American Typewriter, also adds to the design’s overall visual impact: “This whole logo would not be as nice if it were Helvetica,” Lupton tells Smithsonian. Glaser was seemingly under the impression that the ad campaign would run for just two weeks.

Instead, “I ♥ NY” became “the most talked-about and successful tourism program in the nation.” As Chris Lowery, CEO of Chase Design Group, told Adweek in 2017, the logo emerged as “really the world’s first emoji. In a diverse, multicultural city like New York, anyone who saw it instantly knew what it meant.” New York State’s Department of Economic Development holds the “I ♥ NY” trademark and is zealous in its pursuit of vendors who use the design without license. As of 2011, official merchandise bearing the logo brought in an estimated $30 million annually, and the state earned more than $1 million in licensing fees each year.

None of this revenue went into Glaser’s pocket during his lifetime, but he didn’t seem to bear any resentment over the situation. I have no needs that are not being fulfilled.” Glaser did, however, run afoul of the state agency when sharing his “I ♥ NY More Than Ever” design. Initially, the artist asserted that “the state has no interest in using this variation of the logo, feeling that anything that acknowledges the 9/11 event might be interpreted as a sign of weakness.” Speaking with the Village Voice a decade later, Glaser said that the state “threatened to sue me [for] infringing on the copyright.” A lifelong New Yorker, Glaser was deeply affected by the attacks on his city.

He’d designed much of the decor at Windows on the World, a restaurant complex that occupied the North Tower’s 106th and 107th floors. Restaurateur Joe Baum hired Glaser to create its iconic yellow-and-blue logo, menu and dinnerware patterns. Today, some of the dishes used at Windows are housed in the National September 11 Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.