new york club
How Three Letters and a Heart Changed New York City! April 11 2014
I Love New York’ the success story of a campaign and its world famous logo.
The 70’s, time of Disco, free love, marijuana and wild colors or the
so called Woodstock culture. At that time New York City an 18 Mil.
Metropolis and one of the most dangerous on the planet with a crime rate
three to four times higher as today, 130.000 stolen vehicles yearly
compared to ‘only’ 17.000 in 2012, a dirty and dangerous subway system, a
city swamped with hookers and drug addicts. One of the most surprising
and interesting facts about New York in the 70’s is that the city of
Wall Street was close to bankruptcy.
Milton Glaser, a graphic designer, from New York and the creator of
the logo borrowed the rebus from “CJAD Montreal Quebec Canada” which run
a campaign “Montreal, the city with a heart".
Glaser and the advertising agency Wells Rich Greene were hired by William S. Doyle, Deputy
Commissioner of the New York State Department of Commerce, in 1977 to
evolve a campaign which would promote New York State. Instead, ‘I Love
New York’ and its logo became an allegory for NYC!
The attitude in the city changed tremendously, the safety and the
infrastructure changed over time. Statistically New York City is the
safest large city on the planet. Its infrastructure is enviable a
24-hour subway system transports daily more than 5 Million passengers.
‘The Big Apple’ is the second favorite destination on the world with
over 50 Million tourist a year.
The slogan represents ‘The City That Never Sleeps’ over three
decades and white T-Shirts with the emblem are being sold Millions of
times until today.