The Metropolis of New York has launched an up to date model of its unofficial emblem – Milton Glaser’s iconic “I ♥ NY” emblem – as a part of a citywide marketing campaign to “encourage optimism and civic motion” post-pandemic.

The up to date wordmark, created by graphic designer Graham Clifford, reads “WE ♥ NYC” in a blocky sans serif typeface as a substitute of the typewriter-style font used within the authentic 1977 design.

Flying within the face of the flat emblem development, the Twenty first-century model incorporates a shaded, three-dimensional coronary heart harking back to an emoji.

The emblem will star in advertisements throughout the town as a part of an eight-week marketing campaign spearheaded by New York Metropolis mayor Eric Adams, governor Kathy Hochul and the non-profit Partnership for New York Metropolis.

The goal is to chop via the social and political divides highlighted by the pandemic and as a substitute encourage collective motion to regenerate the town within the type of neighborhood cleanups, promotions for neighbourhood companies and different actions.

“The ‘We ♥ NYC’ marketing campaign asks everybody who loves the best metropolis on the planet to indicate it by lending a serving to hand and spreading that love to each block throughout all 5 boroughs,” mentioned mayor Adams.

This concept of neighborhood spirit is mirrored within the emblem’s use of the collective pronoun “we” as a substitute of the singular “I”, whereas its new font references the Helvetica signage of New York’s subway system, which Clifford described as “the beating coronary heart of the town”.

The up to date emblem isn’t meant to interchange the universally recognisable “I ♥ NY” design, which Bronx-born graphic designer Milton Glaser first sketched within the 70s whereas sitting behind a taxi, and which has since been reproduced hundreds of instances within the type of each licensed and unlicensed merchandise.

However the brand new emblem nonetheless sparked backlash from designers and New Yorkers alike, with Adobe’s government vp of design Scott Belsky arguing it lacked “something that feels timeless or iconic”.

Design reporter Katie Deighton took goal on the emblem’s inconsistent spacing, tweeting that it might doubtless have Glaser “kerning in his grave”, whereas Futurism’s design director Tag Hartman-Simkins commented that the wordmark regarded prefer it had been “feedbacked into the bottom”.

“I can not think about any individual with a background in graphic design made that factor with out a committee of bland politicians sanding away its edges till they felt secure sufficient to unveil that to the general public,” he informed the New York Instances.

The marketing campaign’s organisers keep that its goal to “encourage optimism and civic motion” is according to the spirit of Glaser’s authentic design, which was created as a part of an promoting marketing campaign by the State of New York to combat rising unemployment and promote tourism amongst rising crime charges.

“The unique I ♥ NYC marketing campaign was launched in 1977 within the midst of an city disaster,” they wrote. “Its goal was to reignite the can-do optimism of New Yorkers, to mobilise volunteer motion to construct a safer, cleaner, extra affluent metropolis, and to make sure that New York Metropolis would stay an awesome place to reside, work and go to.”

“We ♥ NYC is a Twenty first-century model of the 70s marketing campaign. As soon as once more, New Yorkers are coming collectively to mobilise civic motion and neighborhood engagement because the catalyst for a renaissance of the town and its neighbourhoods.”

Earlier than this most up-to-date iteration of the brand, Glaser already reimagined the design himself as soon as earlier than following the September 11 assaults, adapting it to say “I ♥ NY Extra Than Ever”.

The designer, who handed away in 2020, used his work to advocate for most of the causes he cared about, whether or not elevating consciousness for local weather change, encouraging folks to vote or mobilising motion across the AIDS epidemic within the 80s.

All photos courtesy of Graham Clifford and the New York State Departm.ent of Financial Growth.