Push Pin Studios is a graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

 and illustration

Illustration

An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...

 studio formed in New York City in 1954. Cooper Union

Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

 graduates Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...

, Seymour Chwast

Seymour Chwast

Seymour Chwast an American graphic designer, illustrator, and type designer.Chwast was born in Bronx, New York, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 1951. With Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, and Reynold Ruffins, he founded Push Pin Studios in 1954...

, Reynold Ruffins

Reynold Ruffins

Reynold Ruffins is an African American painter, illustrator, and graphic designer. With Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, and Seymour Chwast, Ruffins founded Push Pin Studios in 1954...

, and Edward Sorel

Edward Sorel

Edward Sorel is an illustrator, caricaturist, cartoonist, and graphic designer.Sorel is noted for his wavy pen-and-ink style, which he describes as "spontaneous direct drawing," since he does not use pencil or tracing for guidance...

 founded the studio.

After graduating from Cooper Union, Sorel and Chwast worked for a short time at Esquire

Esquire (magazine)

Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...

magazine, both being fired on the same day. Joining forces to form an art studio, they called it "Push Pin" after a mailing piece, The Push Pin Almanack, which they self-published during their time at Esquire. Sorel and Chwast used their unemployment checks to rent a cold-water flat on East 17th Street in Manhattan. A few months later, Glaser returned from a Fulbright Fellowship year in Italy and joined the studio.

The bi-monthly publication The Push Pin Graphic was a product of their collaboration. A distinctive quality of Push Pin's early illustration work was a "bulgy" three-dimensional line.

Sorel left Push Pin in 1956, the same day the studio moved into a much nicer space on East 57th Street. For twenty years Glaser and Chwast directed Push Pin, while it became a guiding reference in the world of graphic design. Today, Chwast is principal of The Pushpin Group, Inc.

The exhibition "The Push Pin Style" traveled to the Museum of Decorative Arts

Decorative art

The decorative arts is traditionally a term for the design and manufacture of functional objects. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture. The decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the "fine arts", namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale...

 of the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

, as well as numerous cities in Europe, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 1970–72.

Graphic designers and illustrators like John Alcorn

John Alcorn (artist)

John Alcorn was an American commercial artist and designer, and an illustrator of children's books. In addition to his accomplishments in the areas of packaging, corporate and dimensional design, Alcorn designed the opening titles for several Federico Fellini films...

 (in the late 1950s), Barry Zaid

Barry Zaid

Barry Zaid is a graphic artist and designer.Zaid has contributed covers and drawings to numerous magazines and newspapers including Canadian publications The Globe and Mail, the Star Weekly, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Maclean's; the Australian edition of Vogue; British magazines such as British...

 (1969–1975), and Paul Degen

Paul Degen

Paul Degen was a Swiss illustrator, caricaturist, painter and sculptor. He is mostly known for the cartoons he did for The New York Times and his 34 title illustrations for The New Yorker magazine in the 1970s and 1980s...

(1970s) spent time at Push Pin early in their careers.