‘Mad Men’ Final Season Artwork by Milton Glaser

Randy Kennedy, writing last week for the NYT:

On a recent morning in a townhouse office on East 32nd Street in Manhattan, reality was treading closely, and somewhat strangely, in fiction’s footsteps. The client sitting in the conference room, waiting for his real-life ad man, was the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner. And the ad man was not just another bright, creative type from the art department. It was Milton Glaser, who — probably more than any graphic designer of his generation — forged the sophisticated, exuberant advertising look of the late 1960s, the time “Mad Men” is now traversing, and whose work to publicize the show’s new season will begin appearing next week on buses and billboards around the country.

I feel like I should have guessed in advance that they’d turn to Glaser for the final season’s art. That Glaser is still working is obviously due in part to his longevity (he’s 84 years old), but it also goes to show that Mad Men’s timeframe, though it can feel like ancient history, isn’t really all that long ago.

★ Thursday, 13 March 2014