I Love New York: The origin of the logo

In the decade of the 70 New York City was plunged into one of its greatest fiscal crises. The growing crime without any control and large businesses began their march looking for new locations. The whole atmosphere was hurting the image of New York and tourism was suffering accordingly.

Therefore, in 1977, the Commerce Department New York State agency hired Wells Rich Greene to develop a marketing campaign for the state of New York. William S. Doyle, the head of the department, Milton Glaser also hired to work as a designer in the campaign of Wells Rich Greene.

This campaign aimed to search for people to see New York as something more than a big city with all the problems this entails, being a place to enjoy and in which to live. Thus, the campaign sought tourist was directed both to recover tourism as he was missing all the inhabitants of the State of New York.

Glaser's first idea was to use the simple slogan "I love New York" (I like New York) in two lines, with an elegant typeface to attract attention. But after thinking a whole day, scored on a sheet "I Love New York" and realized that only the capital needed to get the message.

Inspired by the slogan "Virginia is for Lovers" campaign of 1969 the state of Virginia, Glaser created a logo consisting of the letter I followed the red heart symbol. Below stood the letters N and Y written in the patriotic American Typewriter font, resulting in the logo we all know.

Originally, the campaign was designed so that only lasted a couple of months, but its success has made it endure over the years as a mark of identity of the city of New York. His white T-shirts with the logo printed are still today one of the memories of New York best sellers