It turns up at some point during time spent in the five boroughs. The late Milton Glaser’s heart-symbol version of the official state slogan: “I Love New York.” Created in 1976, the iconic graphic delights and inspires to this day. With a similar goal in mind, NYCxDESIGN, the annual festival operated by SANDOW, in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, launched “An Ode to NYC,” a poster campaign that debuted digitally in June, a month after the event—a series of trade shows, exhibitions, panels, and parties—
normally takes place (but, of course, didn’t this year). The campaign returns this fall, but this time in three dimensions, citywide, prompted by the need to uplift in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We see it as a meaningful and important theme of our current times,” NYCxDESIGN program
director Valerie Hoffman says.
For the physical iteration, she and her team enlisted the creativity of 18 designers, some of whom are representing partner organizations ICFF, WantedDesign, Design Pavilion, and the Female Design Council. For most of October, their 18-by-24-inch
posters will be displayed all around Manhattan and beyond, from the New York Design Center in Murray Hill and Artistic Tile showroom in the Flatiron District to digital locations inside the Oculus in FiDi and aboard the NYC Ferry. The designs can also be purchased at the Poster House in Chelsea, with proceeds benefitting the Black Artists + Designers Guild.