Artist creates 'Just Enough'

PROVO — One hundred of graphic artist/illustrator Milton Glaser's original drawings, sketchbooks, paintings, lithographs, silk screens and posters are currently on display at the Museum of Art on the Brigham Young University campus.

The display includes well-known images of Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong and Beethoven, among others, along with famous poster icons such as the "I love New York" print.

The co-founder of New York Magazine, he has been called the "Picasso of Pop" and a "modern Renaissance man" for his ability to constantly reinvent himself. Over the past 50 years, the 77-year-old graphic designer and illustrator has created everything from record album covers to packaging, posters to newspaper designs, toys to textiles, books to logos, Web sites to restaurant interiors, theme parks to calendars. Glaser's work from preliminary drawings to finished designs reveals how he arrives at successful designs by including "just enough," said museum spokesman Chris Wilson.

Glaser's approach has put him at the forefront of graphic design and illustration fields.

"Being a child of modernism, I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realized that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless," he said at a 2002 American Institute of Graphic Arts National Design Conference. "If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more, because you realize that every part of that rug, every change of color, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. However, I have an alternative proposition that I believe is more appropriate: Just enough is more."

If you go

What: "Just Enough Is More: The Graphic Design of Milton Glaser"

Where: BYU Museum of Art Marian Adelaide Morris Cannon Gallery

When: On display through Oct. 7

Cost: Free