News/Commentary

New Yorkers fume to learn Eric Adams spent $20 MILLION to change iconic ‘I Love NY’ to more inclusive logo

March 23, 2023 | | Print Article

New York City Mayor Eric Adams commissioned a new city logo a year ago, spending a whopping reported $20 million on it and replacing iconic graphic designer Milton Glasers’ “I Love NY” with the inclusive message “We Love NYC” in a move that has enraged many New Yorkers.

(Video Credit: Eyewitness News ABC7NY)

Adams and Gov Kathy Hochul revealed the design Monday. It is part of a woke campaign to “cut through divisiveness and negativity.”

They ditched the beloved typewriter font and replaced it with a bland sans-serif typeface. The heart is now three-dimensional and is enlarged as if it has myocarditis, which given the pandemic is somehow apropos.

The “I” was dropped for a more inclusive “We” and “NY” became “NYC.”

The price of the logo boggles the mind as critics argue that a ten-year-old could have just as easily done it in Photoshop for free in about five minutes.

Glaser died from a stroke and renal failure on his 91st birthday in July 2020. He created the original logo for a 1977 campaign that promoted tourism in the state. His design was an instant classic, representative of the Big Apple in particular. It came into being during a time of high crime, budget woes, and a myriad of other challenges facing the city.

He designed it in the back of a cab and then handed it off to an ad agency. The logo was allegedly inspired by Richard Indiana’s LOVE sculptures.

Evidently, Admas and Hochul just couldn’t let it be and had $20 million in donations to burn through. Dozens of businesses donated to the new publicity campaign including Amazon, Google, Macy’s, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, and TikTok.

The new designer is Graham Clifford. He told The New York Times the idea was to “give it more of a modern twist.”

According to the Daily Mail, one commenter from New York stated, “Don’t mess with perfection,” after seeing the new logo.

Another pointed out, “If Milton Glaser wasn’t already dead, this s****y version of his iconic I Love NY logo would have killed him.”

One person added, “I’m afraid to say there’s nothing left that Eric Adams’ mayoral administration can f*** up, because they will inevitably find something.”

Yet another warned, “If there’s going to be a riot in NYC, it’ll be over this.”

Proclaimed DC Comics illustrator Mitch Gerads mocked the logo, writing, “Gets the job updating NYC’s branding campaign. Cracks knuckles, fires up Print Shop Deluxe on his Gateway 2000.”

It wasn’t just a few who knocked the logo either. Thousands blasted it as “really bad.”

Ben Stephens, a freelance copywriter, shredded the logo as well.

One person edited the new logo to say “Rats Love NYC.”

At the logo’s launch on Monday, Adams said, “No one will ever beat New Yorkers down. We’re saying, ‘Don’t say, ‘Woe is me.’ ‘Say, Why not me?'”

“Go volunteer. Participate. Be part of the rebirth that we’re seeing in the city and state. NYPD is making it safer every day; decreases in homicide, decreasing shootings, crime is going down, our economy is recovering. Don’t believe the hype. Believe in New York City. We took the ‘I’ out of ‘I Love New York,’ and we brought the ‘we.’ We’re in this together,” Adams declared.

“‘I Love New York’ was a message to the rest of the world. ‘We Love New York City’ is a message to all of you,” Hochul pandered. “The people who have stayed here, who never gave up, who do believe that New York City’s greatest days do lie ahead.”

The logo is being torched on Twitter by all except socialists, evidently. But it has unified New Yorkers in their hatred of it:

https://twitter.com/vanschneider/status/1638572189283758080

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