Push Pin Graphic is the long-running flagship publication by Push Pin Studios, the incredibly influential graphic design and illustration studio founded by the iconic graphic designers Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwas in New York City (1954).
Starting as a freeform publication for friends and clients in 1957, Push Pin Graphic featured innovative and impactful work that often reinterpreted historical visual styles, such as Victorian and Art Nouveau, to counter modernist style while introducing a distinct and contemporary design vocabulary.
As an experimental space, it was free from any external demands and allowed full creative autonomy both in content and layout, including illustrations and choice of campaigns. It ran for 23 years (86 issues), then changed into a bimonthly that circulated until 1980.
Seymour Chwast, the publication’s art director who co-founded the studio with Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, and Reynold Ruffins, was renowned and appreciated for combining design, typography, and illustration into a single practice. Instead of typeface grids and the gentle realism of commercial illustration Push Pin Studio favored irony, ornamentation, and so much whimsy.
Chwast, Seymour (art director). Push Pin Graphic. No. 74, Back to Sleep Issue, and No. 85, Luck Issue. New York: Push Pin Studios, 1978 and 1980.
