Michael Doret: Legendary Graphic Designer

We welcome the legendary lettering and graphic design artist Michael Doret, whose 5-decade

career includes work for Kiss, the New York Knicks, Disney/Pixar, and Time Magazine covers now

in the National Portrait Gallery. He talks about why he wrote Growing Up in Alphabet City,

published in late 2024, and his wanting to tell his own story before someone else did. He also

gets into how childhood visuals shaped his color and letterforms, often subconsciously, from a

Good Humor truck decal to Coney Island signage.

The conversation covers his path through tuition-free Cooper Union, mentorship under Ed

Benguiat at Photo-Lettering, a formative Push Pin stint with Milton Glaser, his sketch-first

process, declining standards in signage, skepticism about AI originality, the origins of the Knicks

logo, and his advice to work less and live more.

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