Cervantes is openly mocking the style of chivalric romance by picking two ridiculously complicated quotes, which are actual quotes from two different stories (the first quote is from de Silva while the other quote is from Antonio de Torquemada’s Olivante de Laura), and naming them as a principal cause of Don Quixote’s madness.

Considering that Don Quixote is made up of more than one hundred chapters and more than nine hundred pages, it is crucial to note that only one chapter is needed to properly explain the madness behind the title character.

While the story constantly balances on the line between comedy and tragedy, the comedy lies not only in the slapstick of Quixote’s misadventures, but in the way Cervantes burlesques the literary style of chivalric romance that had oversaturated the market and went out of style in Spain by the 1600s.

The “I ♥ NY” logo was originally designed in 1977 by graphic designer Milton Glaser in the back of a taxi. Constructed for the promotion of tourism in New York State, the logo would instantly gain massive popularity worldwide and is a common fixture on New York City souvenirs. Glaser did the work pro bono as a gesture of goodwill to the city and state of New York, and owns none of the licensing rights, even though the logo continues to earn the city roughly $2 million every year. Despite this, the iconic composition helped make Milton Glaser one of the most well-known graphic designers in the United States.

Genius

Milton Glaser was born on June 26, 1929 in New York City and graduated from Cooper Union, a privately funded college located in the East Village neighborhood. He co-founded the landmark design house Push Pin Studios in 1954 and has created a trove of inspirational designs for clients such as: Brooklyn Brewery, Bob Dylan (pictured below), The School of Visual Arts, New York Magazine (which he also co-founded), and Barron’s.

The Rebus

The genius of the logo is its simplicity. Using a rebus technique “borrowed” from Montreal AM radio station CJAD 800 (whose slogan at the time was “Montreal, the city with a heart”), Glaser adopted the heart motif to represent the feeling of adoration for New York. It is the first time a heart had been used in such a commercial context, and since its initial use it has spawned many imitators, as well as inspired many graphic designers to adopt rebus techniques for slogans.

IBM logo designed by Paul Rand, 1981

American Type

The letterforms in the logo are of the “American Typewriter” typeface. It is considered a slab serif, characterized by its thick, elongated serifs. The lack of sharp hooks, and its openly rounded shapes are representative of a more modern style (as opposed to the classical serif style of Garamond or Baskerville).

Glaser’s original idea was to have the letters stacked in a 2x2 grid, something a monospace typeface like Courier would have pulled off. Once he had settled on American Typewriter, however, something didn’t sit right:

…it had to be redesigned because the actual typeface is clunky, and in an aesthetic sense it didn’t quite work with the shape of the heart.”
From a February 2011 interview with The Telegraph

It was later redesigned as a two-line logo, but with the letters not completely perpendicular. Regardless, even Glaser admits he may have been subliminally influenced by American Pop artist Robert Indiana’s steel sculpture “Love.”

Tourism Promotion

The goal of the logo was to communicate a sense of entitlement and pride to New Yorkers, as well as welcome tourists to boost the local economy. New York in the 1970s has been described as many things: dirty, old, dangerous, grimy, and even bankrupt as the city was suffering from a billion dollar deficit. United States President Gerald Ford vowed to veto any bill offering financial support to the state unless it cleaned up its act.

Milton Glaser, himself, characterized the collective mood of its inhabitants as good as any New Yorker can:

Well, it was the mid-seventies, a terrible moment in the city. Morale was at the bottom of the pit. I always say you can tell by the amount of dog shit in the street… There was so much dog shit because people didn’t feel that they deserved anything else, right?

Spurred by William S. Doyle, Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Commerce and executed by advertising agency Wells Rich Greene, the logo, slogan, song, television commercials and overall campaign reinvigorated the people of the city and the administration behind it. Morale quickly improved and local government started acting toward making the city more attractive to tourists.

Within six years the city found itself heading back into financial stability thanks to the state having full license of the “I ♥ NY” materials and the push in tourism led to an improved law enforcement strategy, dramatically lowering crime rates, keeping big businesses from leaving the city, and refunding essential public services.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwaKmF80j8A

9/11 Redesign

Following the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Milton Glaser was asked again to design a logo promoting the still-beating, although badly bruised, heart of New York as a gesture of resilience.

Arguably, “Give Me Another Chance” has a tough opening verse, considering that the trope of “I done wrong, take me back” has been in countless love songs and the melody behind the lyric goes beyond cliché.

With this lyric things start to shift to a more creative angle. Our narrator now insists that he was looking for something to be angry about. As if regretting a relationship or leading his lover on by making them think their love was being reciprocated.

It could also be an admission that they were reaching for a reason to being unhappy and the cause was the other person.

“Stealing love” could mean to take the love someone gives a person while spending their own love somewhere else, or not reciprocate. In this case, our narrator gets the “feeling” explained in the chorus as a result of this unfair treatment.

The lyrics of “In the Street” explore the archetype of the American teenager from the 1970s. The trope of “stealing” someone’s car (meaning to borrow without permission, usually from the parents), driving around and smoking pot has been the basis of many period television shows and movies.