I Love New York

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the advertising campaign. For the Philippine television show, see I Luv NY. For the VH1 reality-show, see I Love New York (TV series).
"I Love NEW YORK" logo, by Milton Glaser.

The I Love New York logo is a rebus created by Milton Glaser consisting of the capital letter I, followed by a red heart symbol (♥), below which are the capital letters N and Y, set in a rounded slab serif typeface called American Typewriter. The logo and advertising campaign have been used for decades to promote tourism in New York State — not just New York City, as many believe. The trademarked logo appears in souvenir shops and brochures throughout the state, some licensed, many not.

Contents

[edit] Logo

In 1977, William S. Doyle, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Commerce hired advertising agency Wells Rich Greene to develop a marketing campaign for New York State. Doyle also recruited Milton Glaser, a productive graphic designer to work on the campaign, and created the design based on Wells Rich Greene's advertising campaign. Glaser expected the campaign to last only a couple months and did the work pro bono. It was possibly inspired in part by the state tourism slogan Virginia is for Lovers which had featured a "Love" theme and red heart symbol (♥) since 1969. The innovative pop-style icon became a major success and has continued to be sold for years. In the popular mind (though this was not the original intention) the logo has become closely associated with New York City, and the placement of the logo on plain white T-shirts readily sold in the city has widely circulated the appearance of the image, making it a commonly recognized symbol. The symbol is the logo of the New York Heart Foundation. This charity provides funds to various groups working on cures for various diseases of the heart.

Glaser's modified logo to remember the 9/11 attacks on New York City.

The image became especially prominent following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the city, which created a sense of unity among the populace. Many visitors to the city following the attacks purchased and wore the shirts bearing the I Love New York logo as a sign of their support. Glaser created a modified version to commemorate the attacks, reading "I Love NY More Than Ever", with a little black spot on the heart symbolizing the World Trade Center site. The black spot approximates the site's location on Manhattan Island.

Actor Robin Williams wearing an I Love New York T-shirt in Arabic.

The logo has become a part of the American pop cultural canon, since inspiring countless knock-offs (t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc.) of the "I ..." form. New York, in turn, has tried to uphold its trademark by filing a total of nearly 3,000 trademark objections against imitators[citation needed]. The logo has also been used in relation to other places. One example is New Cross, London, where the logo has been altered to read "I Love NX" due to the growing interest in the area because of a suggested rise of new music scene in the area.[citation needed] Another example is in North Yorkshire, England, where the NY is said to be North Yorkshire, rather than New York. The logo has also been used by the band New Young Pony Club in their album sleeve for "Fantastic Playroom" but altered to read "I Love NYPC". The Parodies of this phenomenon, such as "I Spayed My Pets" (using a ♠) or "I Club My Wife" (using a ♣) have also appeared. A recently popular parody is a shirt reading I {have never been to} [in the shape of a heart] New York.[1] Another variation is the recent "I [shamrock] NY", T-shirt reflecting the city's sizable Irish-American population. Japan's largest professional wrestling promotion, New Japan Pro Wrestling, has sold a t-shirt with a logo reading "I Love NJ", as New Japan's initials are NJPW. Expressions beginning with "I heart…", based on a literal reading of the logo, have become a somewhat facetious way to express one's affection for something (e.g., the film I Heart Huckabees). Another recently popular parody is a shirt reading "I Feel Relatively Neutral About New York" as well as the "I [heart] transitive pictograph verbalisations" T-shirt.

When Apple opened their first Apple Store in NYC in 2001, they produced a pin which was emblazoned with "I [Apple] NY".

[edit] References

  1. ^ Byrne, Robert (1988). 1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-449-90285-4. 

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York"
Personal tools