Legendary design icon Stefan Sagmeister is renowned for creating designs that are unconventional, controversial and down right bizarre in order to question the orthodox and inspire the next generation of creatives to push the limits of the work they produce.
“It is very important to embrace failure and to do a lot of stuff —
—Stefan Sagmeister
as much stuff as possible
— with as little fear as possible.”
Born in Austria in 1962, Sagmeister is rumoured to have started his graphic design career when he was just 15 years old, and in the 38 years since has worked with big-name clients including The New York Times, The Museum of Modern Art and HBO Studio Productions. Sagmeister has also designed artworks for some of his musical idols, earning him two Grammy awards for his album packaging designs. Recently though, he has taken a step back from creating designs for CD’s, rationalising that this form of design is becoming increasingly more obsolete, and he has chosen to put more focus on his text-based designs.
In 1993, he founded his New-York based design company “Sagmeister Inc.” in an attempt to create a creative business that gave Sagmeister full creative control of the work he wanted to produce. 19 years later, this company was re-named “Sagmeister & Walsh” to reflect the fact that Jessica Walsh, a designer, art director and illustrator from New York, had been chosen by Sagmeister to be his partner at the firm.
Sagmeister’s list of notable clients and awards, however impressive, does not do justice to the legacy of his work, or convey the controversy that he has stirred up as a result. It is Sagmeister’s strong work ethic and unusual approach to design that has made his work stand out from the crowd and has made his work such an important influence on emerging artists and designers. As a student designer myself and in my opinion, Sagmeister’s work acts as an important reminder to try do work that appeals as original, groundbreaking and unique to you wherever possible as it can produce the most unique results; only by pushing the boundaries of the work you do can you establish and push the limits of your skills. In 1999, as part of a poster design for an AIGA lecture in Detroit, he famously had the wording for the poster cut into his skin- an almost barbarically honest approach to the design of this piece and — in an age where digital design is in the majority — it is still as poignant now as it was 16 years ago.
“We probably could have Photoshopped that AIGA Detroit poster, rather than cutting the type in my skin. I think the results are more authentic and the process more interesting (and painful).”
—Stefan Sagmeister
I feel that is important to raise the issue of the sustainability of this type of design. The first time that a piece of work like this is produced, it is shocking and completely new, but is it really possible for designers to ethically consider self-destruction as a plausible method for design? How long can a designer keep up this very personal from of design? And how does this effect designers who look to Sagmeister for inspiration? The AIGA Detroit poster is not the only piece of work that Sagmeister has produced where he has put his body on the line to convey his message. For a piece titled “Sagmeister on a Binge” (2003), he gained over 25 pounds in weight over the course of a single week by eating and drinking his way through a sizeable amount of junk food and drink, all of which is displayed in a before/after style set of photos.
It has become obvious that Sagmeister wants to demonstrate the amount of pain and self sacrifice that every good designer puts into their work but in doing so has formed controversy and worry that this work is sending the message to younger designers that putting your body in danger is a quick easy way to gain media attention. Personally, I would defend Sagmeister’s darker, more unusual work- it carries a strong message in an increasingly superficial society and by looking at his less unsettling pieces it is easy to see that he has a lot of talent to offer the industry, rather than just creating design that only exists for the sake of being controversial.
For example, his poster design for Lou Reed’s 1996 album “Set the Twilight Reeling” highlights the use of a distinctive handwritten script to display some of the lyrics from the album, which have a bold simplicity that makes it stand out from the high definition photograph in the background. This piece created for the client Warner Bros. shows that Sagmeister is not limited to creating intensely modern or shocking pieces of work, and demonstrates his ability to create more commercial, client-focused work. In fact, by taking a quick look at the gallery on the Sagmeister and Walsh website it is evident that this is not a one off and that Stefan Sagmeister has successfully found a good balance between making standard commercial pieces and creating mould-breaking design experiments.
In my opinion, designers in all stages of their career could learn a lot from this as it is all too easy to get pulled towards either extreme of the Commertial/Personal design spectrum. On one hand, creating work just for money can be extremely limiting, both creatively and emotionally. Sagmeister has been known to take a year long sabbatical every seven years in order to counter the creative slump caused by his high profile commercial work, and to spend some time working on projects that interest him the most. This innovative career move has sparked avid conversation in the design world and inspired many in the creative industry to invest in personal time.
Although, not all of Sagmeister’s sabbatical inspired pieces have been met with a positive response. His piece “Banana Wall” (2008) —a wall adorned with over 10,000 bananas at varying stages of ripeness that, for a limited time displayed the phrase “Self-confidence produces fine results” before rotting away completely — was criticised for it’s wastefulness. In a time where we are so conscious of the problems of third world countries and the struggles of those who are less fortunate than most, it is easy to see why this piece would strike a nerve and new designers could definitely learn the lesson of considering social responsibility in design from this shortcoming in Sagmeister’s work.
“So how does a graphic designer avoid losing his or her soul?
Having misplaced little pieces of mine, I'm not sure if I am the right person to answer this question. What soul I have left I’ve managed to keep by pausing; by stopping and thinking.”—Stefan Sagmeister
Foreword from "How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul", 2005
One Graphic Designer who’s work has greatly influenced Sagmeister’s is the late Tibor Kalman, former editor in chief of Colours magazine who has been described as a “social prod” and a “bad boy of graphic design”— words that are also synonymous with Sagmeister’s own career.
Sagmeister was a big fan of Kalman’s work, and contacted him every week for half a year until Kalman agreed to see him. Five years later, in 1993, he worked briefly for Kalman at his design firm M&Co. in the six months before its closure, and it is easy to see the effect that he has had on Sagmeister’s later work; there is a similarity to the provocative nature of their designs and their shared desire to explore the emotional impact that images exploring social taboos can have on the general public.
Kalman’s impact on how Sagmeister thought about the work he produced is clear, but rather than taking inspiration directly from the imagery or graphic style of Kalman’s work, Sagmeister chose to make a name for himself by carving out a completely new way of producing design work, providing a work ethic for the next generation of designers to aspire to.