Milton Glaser from Drawing is Thinking

I recently received Milton Glaser's Drawing is Thinking as a gift and immediately began reading it. Interestingly, there's not much reading to be had, at least not prosaically (instead: visually). The book starts off with a short introduction by Judith Thurman, then continues with a 13 page Glaser interview by Peter Mayer. After that, there's no words until the index.

Glaser designed the book to be a visual experience uninfluenced by text. In the interview he compares the experience to listening to a good piece of music:

"My intention in creating this book was to fashion a kind of musical experience, one in which each image anticipates what is to come and relates to what has appeared before, much as a melodic line does. I am hoping to achieve a non-descriptive experience." (10).

And, sticking to his claim, there is page after page of beautiful, undescribed artwork. Not knowing for who or what the work was produced allows the viewer to better appreciate each as an independent piece, rather than a supplement to a design.

Although the book is about drawing, Glaser touches on design during the interview. As an aspiring graphic designer this snippet rings deep, and I'd like to share.

Peter Mayer: What do you want to achieve, in having created this work? The images in it are not new, but the book itself is a totally new work. If the book is an aggregate of the images and their sequencing, then one might ask the question: Who is this sequence for? We agreed early on that this would be a very personal book. Is this a book that you see as for yourself?

Milton Glaser: You know, every time I speak to students, they always ask, "Do you do any work for yourself?" The presumption beneath that question is that since one works to assignment, the work is not for oneself. My view is that all the work I've done is for myself, and it also involves accommodating either a personality (the client) or problem that has to be solved. Such is the nature of the design profession. 

My work is always for an audience because I want people to see it. But, here, what I want them to see is something other than a series of solutions to individual problems. .... I get closer here to my attempt to create attentiveness than in any single work that I've done. I have always been aware of the need to provoke the mind when communicating ideas because that is the only way that you prod someone into understanding anything. That is why ambiguity is such a useful tool. (12-13)

Beautiful.