Lessons from Milton Glaser

Photo credit: Sam Haskins.

We could all stand to learn a thing or two from Milton Glaser. Here are some things I've been (re)learning from him recently.

A.) Glaser gave a AIGA talk in London in 2001 called Ten Things I Have Learned.

1. YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
2. IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
3. SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
4. PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
5. LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
6. STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
7. HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
8. DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
9. ON AGING.
10. TELL THE TRUTH.

All ten things are quite useful pieces of advice, but number three in particular had a profound affect on how I've been thinking about relationships lately; mainly, surround yourself with people you actually like. Be conscious of how other people affect you. Let people into your life who leave you feeling uplifted, and wave a fond goodbye to people who leave you feeling drained. Here is Glaser's text:

3. SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM. This is a subtext of number one [You can only work for people that you like]. There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

B.) A lovely video on drawing as thinking (Glaser wrote a book in 2009 on the same subject).

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

C.) Go here to watch a great, short documentary by Adobe on Glaser.

D.) Via Glaser from the always poetic and lovely Iris Murdoch:


E.) And, for future Glaserian edification and education, I am looking forward to seeing this film, Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight, released April 27th, 2010, on DVD.