Some Great Milton Glaser Quotes
“I enjoy teaching. I love the act of being in front of a class. It makes me feel good. I have no other reason to teach. If I didn’t look forward to it, I wouldn’t do it anymore. But I find it gives me a lot of energy and makes me feel useful. For a large part of my life, feeling useful has been a dominate characteristic of what rewards me, whether it’s teaching or making things or being socially active.”
miltonglaser.com
“I try not to be overly ideological about teaching, but I believe that thinking about the consequences of your work-the issue of ethics-is essential. Since we’re specifically involved in the transmission of cultural ideas-ideas about value-then we have to examine the meaning of what we’re proposing to our students. So I try to suggest that a designer’s role is one in which we have to be at least conscious of the consequences of what we transmit to others.”
miltonglaser.com
“The difference between the brain and the computer has to do with the way the brain works by maintaining its fuzziness,…You do a sketch — which is why, incidentally, I think that drawing is essential — and the brain examines the sketch and modifies it. The brain then thinks of another idea. And then you do another sketch, which is still fuzzy, and there’s a response on the part of the brain, and you move in a series of steps toward clarification. The maintenance of ambiguity is a central part of how the brain works.”
miltonglaser.com
“The problem with the computer is that when you go on the computer, everything has to be made clear too quickly,” he says. “And so the essential part of the developmental dialectic disappears. The greatest liability to the computer is that a lot of weak ideas are very well developed. The computer clarifies things too quickly.”
miltonglaser.com
“I would change the perception of the purpose of design that is deeply imbedded in design education. Because it’s linked to art, design is often taught as a means as expressing yourself. So you see with students, particularly young people, they come out with no idea that there is an audience. The first thing I try to teach them in class is you start with the audience. If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you can’t talk to anybody.”
miltonglaser.com