Stefan Sagmeister
1. Early life & education 2. Early careers & Sagmeister Inc. 3. Sagmeister & Walsh
Introduction Stefan Sagmeister is an Austrian graphic designer/ creative director based in New York. Although he was known as the “Rock star designer” who won and nominated several Grammy awards from his design for the music industry, he did several works including branding, packaging, commercials, books and other types of graphic design work. Stefan Sagmeister was born in Bregenz, in Austria on August 6th 1962 and currently living and working in New York. He was the youngest from six siblings and was the only one who took path in the art industry. He grew up playing in a band which influenced him on his interest in album covers design and joined the local magazine to find himself enjoying designing layouts and posters instead of writing. After finishing high school, Sagmeister moved to Vienna enrolled in the University of Applied Arts Vienna. He was first rejected and decided to study in a private art school until he re-applied to the University and was accepted. He won a scholarship to New York and studied at Pratt University for a few years. Sagmeister worked with Leo Burnett’s advertising agency in Hong Kong in the early 90s. He then moved back to New York to work for Tibor Kalman’s design firm, M&Co. Sagmeister was heavily influenced by his true hero, Tibor Kalman. He always wanted to work with him since he was a student at Pratt Institute. He insisted to meet with Kalman and was accepted to work with him five years after he graduate from Pratt Institute.
He founded his own company, Sagmeister Inc after a suggestion from Kalman. The late 90s was the years where his name came up to the surface as the designer who designed remarkable album packaging. The first seven years was more music-centric since Sagmeister always wanted to contribute in designing album covers such as Lou Reed, David Byrne, Brian Eno, The Rolling Stones and HP Zinker. The next seven years was more about developing the personal and insert the “human” into the design. The third seven years was more self-initiated and traditionally client-based design as he’s trying to be more careful and selective with the clients he wanted to work with. Since then he has been working with reputable companies such as The New York Times, Levi’s, BMW, Red bull until AIGA and MoMa. In 2012, He teamed up with Jessica Walsh, a former art director for Print Magazine, to establish a firm, Sagmeister and Walsh. They met in 2010 when Sagmeister was looking at Walsh’s portfolio, he was impressed by her work and offered a job in his company right away. Sagmeister is known for using everyday material as an element of his designs. An object of his choice could be the main character or a small part of a whole. While Sagmeister is more orthodox in his design approach, Walsh’s significant style is her use of bold and contrasting colour. They both complimented one another and creates a whole different result.
Early life & Education
Childhood “My name is Stefan Sagmeister. I’m an Austrian designer who lives and works in New York City.” This sentence is spoken by graphic designer/ creative director Stefan Sagmeister every time he asked to introduced himself simply because he wanted people to remember him the way the sentence says. Born in Bregenz, in the Austrian Alps on August 6 1962. He was born the youngest of six from Karl and Karolina Sagmeister and was the only child who was interested in pursuing arts. Two of his siblings were already taking the charge of running the family business of men’s clothing store. Sagmeister’s nephew took charge. His interest in arts came from his grandfather who was a local sign painter.
Above: Sagmeister posing in front of the office window with a birthday greeting from his co-workers, August 6th 2015
Adolescence Days In the age of fifteen of 1978, he joined a local youth magazine called Alphorn where he was originally assigned for writing articles, but he realize he was more interested in designing the layouts and posters. His first graphic project for the magazine was for the Anarchy issue which he photographed from the school roof of his fellow students to lie down in the ground forming letter A.
“My granddad wanted to become a sign painter and designer, but was stopped; my dad would have had a real talent for language, but was stopped. When I expressed a desire to become a graphic designer, I was not stopped.”
Meanwhile, he also formed a prog-rock band with his friends for a while but they thought they wouldn’t make it better so they disbanded. But from his band practicing experience, he grew his passion in vinyl album covers a popular medium. It was the album by King Crimson “In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson” (1969) (right). Painted by Barry Godber (1946–1970). It was the first album cover that got Sagmeister interested in designing record covers.
Above: King Crimson’s album cover “In the Court of the Crimson King: An Observation by King Crimson” (1969)
University Days After high school, Sagmeister studied engineering but switched majors when he realized that he prefers to design. In 1981 at the age of 19, he moved to Vienna to study graphics in University of Applied Arts but his application was rejected. He then attended a private art school for a year, and after that he was accepted as a student in the University of Applied Arts. In 1987, Sagmeister won a scholarship to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York after winning a contest. Sagmeister stated in an interview that he was just lucky. He participated in a poster contest in Vienna where the judges were from the Pratt Institute scouting for talent. He developed a style which involved injecting his work with his humour. Sagmeister then studied for his masters at Pratt while working there as an extension to his two years of accommodation in New York.
Above: The main building of Pratt Institute, New York.
Early Careers & Sagmeister Inc.
Scholarship & Internship Sagmeister was a bright student in both universities. He enjoyed the idea of studying design in formal institute. He did work back and-forth in Vienna and New York even before he finishes his Masters in Pratt. In 1983, he became a designer for ETC magazine in Vienna. The following year, he became a designer for Schauspielhaus, German word for theatre to show plays, in Vienna for four years. Until one day he created a poster for them and the judges was impressed with his work. After they turned out that the poster was made by Sagmeister, a current student at the University of Applied Arts, the judges who came from Pratt Institute gave him a fulbright scholarship. Not long after he moved to New York, Sagmeister went all over the city to find an internship. He moved one place to another for just a year each. 1987 until 1988, he designed for Parham Santana, a brand extension agency who designed for consumer packaged goods marketers. 1988 until 1989,The next year, did some work for Muir Cornelius Moor, a financial advertising company. After Sagmeister finishes his internship in 1989, he also did some projects for himself under Sagmeister Graphics in both New York and Vienna until 1990.
Above: Young Sagmeister in the early 90s.
Burnett In Hong Kong Later, the 29-year-old Sagmeister moved to Hong Kong in 1991 to join an advertising company for Leo Burnett Company Inc. In 1991. They asked him to be their typographer and he accepted the offer. He worked for 16 hours a day for two years which Sagmeister claimed that it was his worst days of his life, but regardless gave him a valuable lesson especially in running a design corporation. The agency invited him to design a poster for the 1992 4As advertising awards ceremony where he illustrate four male bottoms with a traditional Cantonese words on it. They were startled and filed some protest against the poster. He quit the job in 1993 and spent a couple months in Sri Lanka before going back to New York.
Above: The poster Sagmeister did for 4A Awards.
Tibor Kalman “Don’t you go and spend all the money that they pay you or you’re going to be the whore of ad agencies for the rest of your life.” - Tibor Kalman, Advice for Sagmeister Since he was a student, he idolized Tibor Kalman, a Hungarian-American graphic designer, born in 1949. Kalman and his wife, Maira Kalman founded their own design company called M&Co, named after Maira. Sagmeister always dreamed of working with M&Co. Both M&Co and Kalman’s work has always been a huge influence to Sagmeister especially for his early works. In his days in New York, Sagmeister blasted Kalman with his calls every week for half a year and went back and forth to the M&Co office which became friends with the receptionist. Sagmeister slipped his portfolio where it turned out that his sketches was similar to a concept for a work they’ve been doing at that time. Above: Tibor Kalman
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M&Co and COLORS
Five years later after Sagmeister showed his portfolio to Kalman, he got hired by M&Co, where his first project was creating an invitation for a Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Gala. He designed a packaged boxed of fruit where the M&Co staff was struggling to keep the fruit fresh from New York summer heat. One of his album covers he did in the company was for Ryuichi Sakamoto. Few months later, he closed the company and decided to move to Rome and advised Sagmeister to build his own company. Sagmeister built his studio from nothing, no contracts from labels at all. So he would take non-music jobs. Later after the closing of M&Co in New York, Tibor Kalman became the full-time editorin-chief for Benetton-sponsored COLORS magazine, a quarterly “magazine about the rest of the world” which they covered one topic each in every edition around multiculturalism and global awareness.
Above: The first issue of COLORS magazine edited by Tibor Kalman (1991) Bottom: Ryuichi Sakamoto’s album cover “Gruppo Musicale” (1993)
Sagmeister branding “You should do everything twice. The first time you don’t know what you’re doing. The second time you do. The third time it’s boring.” - Tibor Kalman. Sagmeister soon realized that Kalman gave him some useful advice that became his influence of building his own career as Sagmeister Inc. He then hired an Icelandic designer named Hjalti Karlsson and Jan Wilker, which later they would form a design firm named Karlsson Wilker.
Top: Sagmeister Inc’s first business card. Bottom: Sagmeister Inc’s business card after 10 years later.
Their first project was to create a business card for himself from an acrylic slipcase where when the card is inside the case, the only thing visible is a letter S in a circle which was the company logo, and when the card is outside, it gave the details about the company. He has been designing the card since he was in Pratt and had been used for about thirty years. Although it was remarkable, the business card didn’t last long because It was difficult to produce. They decided to change the design ten years after he built Sagmeister Inc to a much simpler design. The new design was a small white greetingscard-like and when opened it shows the details of the company and his logo would pop out in the middle.
Anni Kuan In 1993, Sagmeister dated a Taiwanese fashion designer Anni Kuan. She moved to New York at the age of twelve and became a graduate at Pratt Institute in New York, the same place where Sagmeister study and first met. Kuan and Sagmeister did several works together including the branding, brochures and newsprint catalogue. Both Kuan and Sagmeister was influenced by the life in New York from the art side to the flow of the New Yorker’s schedule. They didn’t get married. Instead Stefan was engaged with someone else in 2013. He jokingly said in his talks that his grandparents names was Josef and Josefine, his parent Karl and Karolina and he should get himself a girl named Stefanie hence his name Stefan.
Above: Sagmeister and Kuan featured in New York Times magazine for their collaboration. Below: An interactive brochure Sagmeister did for Kuan featuring a mini sliding game.
Sticky Fingers One of Sagmeister’s favourite design piece was The Rolling Stone’s album cover, “Sticky Fingers” (1971) designed by Andy Warhol and Craig Brown. He was impressed with the bulging pants and the actual, real zipper that was featured on the cover. He was touched by the unexpectedness as well as the obvious commitment of the designer and the record label to go through a “production nightmare”. As he admired the cover, it raises the questions such as “Will we see Mr. Jagger naked upon opening?” And “Was the fact that the zipper scratches the cover next to it designed deliberately?” Besides Tibor Kalman, Sagmeister also admired the work of Pop Art artist such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Especially for Lichtenstein, he first thought that the artist was an outsell and wasn’t that much special. But the more he became more he age, he changed his opinion about Lichtenstein. He understand what the artist was trying to say and intend. Above: Front cover of Rolling Stone album “Sticky Fingers” (1971) Bottom: Inside artwork of the album.
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Mountain of Madness
In the first seven years, Sagmeister Inc was more music centric. One of the music label was interested in Sagmeister’s work so he had a chance to work for a friend’s album, HP Zinker’s Mountains of Madness. While the contemporary designers thought designing for music has become less interesting since the evolution of the medium such as cassettes and CDs which force the design to shrunk to a way smaller size, Sagmeister thought it was challenging instead. He replicated his optical illusion from his business card to the album where the closed packaging depicted a close-up face of a calm man and when the case is opened, the face became angry with a combination of the colour red, green and white. The album cover soon became nominated for 1996 Grammy awards which made him rise to the surface of how remarkable the design was and coming from a rather unknown band on a small label.
Top: “Mountain of Madness” front album cover. Bottom: Inside the package, booklet and CD.
Comparison
HP Zinker’s album (top) inspired by using anaglyph aesthetics but using green instead of blue and by combining two similar images aligned in the same spot. Compared to my photograph (bottom) edited with 3D anaglyph effects with the exact images are used. The other picture (right) is using double exposure by combining two very different images and by overlapping them, it made the image more vibrant.
Lou Reed In late 1995, Sagmeister worked with Lou Reed for his album Set the Twilight Reeling (right top to bottom image). It was rather surprising how they managed to work together. Reed came by to Sagmeister’s place 15 minutes after he received a phone call from Reed saying he will be coming. When Lou Reed came to the building, the doorman was just listening to Reed in his music player and showed Reed that he was just listening to him. The doorman knocked Sagmeister’s door and said there was Lou Reed waiting. Without any greetings, Reed just came to Sagmeister saying that he lives in a great building with a fantastic doorman with a great taste in music, which puts him in a good mood. The CD design outlook was dark indigo-tinted case with an insert of Lou Reed’s close up portrait in the slip in a bright yellow colour as if he’s emerging from the twilight. The album was fairly positive and personal as Sagmeister was aware about Reed’s protective space, he decided to include his handwriting showing that the album was not made by a machine. Lou was satisfied how Sagmeister worked, so he pushed back the release date just to let Sagmeister finish the album packaging. Later the album design was nominated for the 1997 Grammys.
Top: Front packaging of the album. Showing the dark side of Lou Reed. Bottom: The inside design.
Comparison
Sagmeister’s promotional design for Lou Reed’s album “Set the Twilight Reeling” (left) used handwritten typography to make it more tactile and personal. Compared to the poster on the right, it is showing a bold statement using handwritten letters and contrasting dark and light colours.
The Rolling Stones In 1997, he worked with The Rolling Stones for their album and tour, “Bridges to Babylon” The Rolling Stones’ managers had looked at numerous portfolios in an attempt to come up with the right designer for the band’s new album. Sagmeister found out that he had made the short-list when Mick Jagger called and asked him to fly out to Los Angeles to meet with him and drummer Charlie Watts. There was no music or album title at that point, just some initial stage designs. They talked about their favourite albums and covers and other ideas, and Sagmeister returned to New York to devise four different “directions” for Jagger. He did these designs on spec, which is something he does not ordinarily do. But for the Stones he was willing to bend his rule. A month later, Sagmeister met again, in London, with Jagger, who said that although none of the four spec designs were what he was looking for, he liked the work enough to hire the designer. Jagger told him to check out the Babylonian art in the British Museum. What stood out most was a 10.- To 12-foot-high sculpture of an Assyrian lion with a man’s head and beard and an animal’s body. A version of that sculpture is what appears on the cover of the finished CD. The design also had to be in synch with the look of the stage for the concert tour, which is named after the album.
Top: The closed album cover with sleeve on. Bottom: Design inside the CD.
Comparison
The Rolling Stones’ album “Bridges to Babylon” (top left) is one of Sagmeister’s technique using cut out shapes of flowers to create the surrounding in the lion when the packaging is closed. When the sleeve is open, it lion appeared to be free in the landscape. The picture below is also using cut out technique for book cover sleeve. The typography was designed really simple and inside the sleeve features photography and graphics which will appear differently to each letter. The placement for the photo and graphic was cleverly placed to show the separated words from “creative cargo”.
Comparison The similarities of “Bridges to Babylon” (top left) to other music covers with similar desert theme. Muse’s “Black Holes and Revelation” (2006) and the album artwork for Sleep’s “Dopesmoker” (2012). The three artworks depicts the main subject in a dessert with a complementary shades of blue and orange.
Comparison Not only for “Bridges to Babylon”, Sagmeister also made cut-outs for the designs for one of his books called “Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far” where he cut irregular shapes according to the shape of his face without removing facial features such as nose, mouth and eyes. The cut-outs could be filled with different parts of his books where you could modify any way the person pleases.
Talking Heads & Byrne M&Co designed the cover album for American rock band Talking Heads’ “Remain in Life” in 1980 with the hit single “Once in a Lifetime” produced by their long time collaborator Brian Eno. From M&Co, Kalman introduced the frontman, David Byrne to Sagmeister. In 1997, Sagmeister worked for David Byrne’s album, Feelings. In Sagmeister’s opinion, he was one of the best clients he had. He admired Byrne’s sophisticated personality, how small his ego was and how they shared the same vision in visual direction. So he designed an album with Byrne’s face as a GI Joe-styled doll all over the album with bright playful colours.
Top: Talking Heads “Remain In Light” (1980). The cover was created by M&Co and with a help from Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT) to create the pixelated red blob over their faces. Bottom: Sagmeister’s design for David Byrne’s solo album “Feelings” (1997).
Comparison
In comparison with Byrne’s 1997 album, “Feelings”, I paired with Peter Saville’s design for New Order’s tenth studio album “Music Complete” (2015). It features the four primary colours in the same order in the cover and Byrne’s inside cover, excluding white which is also a feature colour in both album. Both albums uses primary colours in the same value to communicate the design which was also used by Roy Lichtenstein’s “Ohhh... Alright...” which also uses bright colours without adding any shade colours to create the popping effect in his works.
Comparison
Top left: Sagmeister’s poster for AIGA colorado which the details of the talk are in the stickers. Bottom Left: Another Sagmeister work featuring different ripeness of banana spelled the words “Self-confidence Produces FIne Results” as the banana ripen, the colour faded and changes. Right: Andy Warhol’s design for The Velvet Underground album “The Velvet Underground & Nico” (1967) with the peel off sticker which has a peeled pink banana flesh behind.
Comparison
Left: Sagmeister Inc made the poster for “Another Show about Promotion and Advertising Materials”, at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France. The team (Stefan Sagmeister, Jessica Walsh, Michael Friemuth & Philip Hubert) shaved their heads and used the hair to create the typography for the poster. Top right: Kings of Leon’s album cover “Walls” (2016) has similar colours with Sagmeister poster but was accused of copying The Byrds’ cover album “Byrdmaniax” (1971) (bottom right).
Comparison
Left: One of Sagmeister’s most iconic poster for his talk for AIGA Detroit and Cranbrook. He asked one of his intern to cut his skin so it would leave a mark after a while. They were trying to visualize the pain that seems to accompany most of their design projects. RIght: A work by a French artist, Thomas Mailaender. Using the same fature, skin, to communicate the message. He sunburn old photographs into people’s skin. He applied 23 original negatives from the archive of modern conflict’s collection onto the skin of models, before projecting a powerful UV lamp over them. the result reveals a fleeting picture on the skin’s surface, which he photographed just moments before exposure to daylight caused them to disappear.
Comparison
Left: The 2005 poster for Adobe Design Achievement Awards by Sagmeister Inc was made by using different shades of coffee and aligned it to form a trophy shape. They worked with a modest budget, called in many favors from producer Philip Haemmerle and architecture firm Loading Dock 5. RIght: The US map designed by Paula Scher. Her design is covered by handmade typography. The letters was part of the element that builds up the US map. She wanted to invent her own complicated narrative about the way she see and feel about the world. She wanted to list what she know about the world from memory, from impressions, from media, and from general information overload.
Comparison
Left: Levi’s asked Sagmeister Inc. to design a poster for the 501, they took a picture of their jeans, deconstructing them down to the individual threads and buttons, and then reforming the pair and incorporating the sentence “This is a pair of Levis, sewed with the strongest thread”. RIght: The 00s Issue of Studio8 Design cover of York Magazine. The line element gives a similarity to the Levi’s ads showing thread by thread, line by line creates a whole picture.
Comparison Bottom: Sagmeister’s poster for his exhibition in Chaumont, France features all the people who had a significant influence on Sgameister Inc’s work. They were all handpainted by tourist illustrators found in New York’s Central park. Top left: A poster that reminds me of the DIY culture, handmade and handpainted with an african influence on the illustration style and the colours. Top right: A fanmade of 1982 movie poster, “The Thing” illustrates the head in profile build up by the horror elements and the cold colours of the antagonist. Each typography in the poster communicates different meaning although they have the same main subject matter.
Comparison
Top & bottom left: Album packaging for Mimi, New York band’s debut album depicting pictures of jellyfishes floating through the album which communicates the type of sound the band creates. Top right: Album cover for Icelandic artist, Björk in her 2011 album “Biophilia” which has the theme of nature intertwine with human creating an atmospheric harmony. Bottom right: The main page for the promotional ipad app that was intented to support “Biophilia” mimicks the galaxy and the universe connected to one another.
Comparison
Middle: The typical Sagmeister-styled poster of him naked for his poster for his first real solo museum show at the MAK in Vienna, Austria. Far left: The invitation for his solo show with the warning “...Whatever you do, don’t stick your finger through that hole.” which will make the result of something else. Far right: A witty innocent poster of a boy peeing by the river but replaced by the text “dny bruselu v praze / Brussels days in Prague”
Taking Time Off “Right now, we spend the first 25 years of our life learning, the next 40 years working, another 15 years in retirement, and then we die” - Stefan Sagmeister October 1st 2001 was the first day Sagmeister took his days off for sabbatical. In his work span, he would take the year off every seven years and wouldn’t take any projects from clients. The idea of Sabbatical came from how tired he was of using the same idea for different project. He wanted to view his projects in a different point of view. But it was not easy to do because he thought people would forget him and he might lose his career when he came back. He was scared that this idea would make his clients see him as unprofessional. At first he told them that he was working on a huge project that required him to take a year off. Instead, he told the truth abouth his plans for sabbatical. Luckily, the feedback he got from his clients was fairly positive. They instead encourage him to do so for his own good.
Above: The still from “The Happy Film” (2016) showed neuroscientists at UVA ran preliminary tests to assess Sagmeister’s well-being prior to undergoing three experimental trials designed to make him happier.
Sabbatical On his next sabbatical in 2009, he went to Bali, Indonesia, one of his favorite place for sabbatical. From there he was more organized with his sabbatical schedule. He would make a plan beforehand about the list that he found interesting to do there. From the list, he would break up into weekly schedule and plan his daily activities for three until four months into sabbatical. By doing that, he would make himself more productive not in a strict way. Because the first time he did his sabbatical, although it was successful, it doesn’t make him content. From the sabbatical, he met one of his friends from New York and he said what Sagmeister did with his activities in Bali was not worthwile. But Sagmeister didn’t think that way. Instead, it inspired him to direct his own documentary movie, “The Happy Film”. In 2016, he did his third sabbatical in Mexico City. Although he did not take any work from clients, Jessica Walsh took over the office and he did several talks in Mexico.
Above: The still from “The Happy Film” (2016) Co-directed by Ben Nabors and Sagmeister showing him meditating in Bali in search for personal happiness.
Byrne, Eno & the last Sagmeister decided to stop designing for music after he went for his first sabbatical in 2001. But it was an exceptional case for the band Talking Heads and David Byrne and Brian Eno. Talking Heads album, “Once in a Lifetime” received a Grammy awards for Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package nomination in 2005. It features three set of CDs including DVD and music video compilation in long, skinny, horizontal design with paintings by Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov. Sagmeister blatantly said it was a design that screams “F you” because it won’t fit in a regular rack for Vinyl, CD or cassette but even would still look good to put in the corner. Byrne and Eno collaboration album “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” was an electronic-gospel album released in 2008. The Special edition package would feature a diorama of a house on top and a sound effect when the casing was opened. Inside the case it would include a music CD, a DVD, a 92 pages booklet, a dice and a pharmaceutical pill. The design received another Grammy award in 2010 for Best Record Packaging.
Top: The special edition packaging of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s second album “Everything That WIll Happens Will Happen Today” (2008). Bottom: Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” (2005) front cover booklet.
Comparison
Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradov’s painting aesthetics is similar to the impressionist paintings such as Claude Monet [Antibes, vue du plateau Notre Dame] and PierreAuguste Renoir [Two Sisters on the Terrace]. Because the almost flat colours, the brush marks and the colour harmony used in all the paintings are similar to each other. Also the subject of the gentleness and enjoying open air-nature.
Sagmeister & Walsh
Nudity as a team When the firm was first started, Sagmeister wanted to take his picture naked again as a tribute to his time when he first started Sagmeister Inc 19 years ago. He asked Walsh to dress “conservatively�. Walsh asked him why would she, and she wanted to be naked too. So they posed for the postcard as a new beginning in Sagmeister & Walsh. In May 2016, they launched their new website featuring two live feed of the office where the signage leads to the directory of their website. They also released another portrait where this time it was dominated with electric blue colour with their logo on a flag and the males are pantless and the females are shirtless. Some people feel annoyed by their continuation of using naked as a joke but Walsh stated that there is always people who love it or hate it and she was always anticipating that kind of reaction.
Top: The new postcard for Sagmeister & Walsh featuring the old naked picture of Sagmeister in 1994 and the recent photograph with Walsh. Bottom: 2016 topless and botomless potrait of the team with their logo on the flag.
Jessica Walsh Jessica Walsh (Born October 30 1986), is a designer, art director and Illustrator formerly working in Print magazine. She is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design majoring in graphic design earning a BFA. She then moved to New York to intern at design firm, Pentagram before she worked for Print Magazine as an associate art director. She also lectures about design at creative conferences and universities internationally. She also teaches design and typography at The School of Visual Arts in New York.
For Walsh herself, she describes her admiration for Sagmeister. “His work always touched me or evoked some emotion, whether through the message, beauty, wit, personality, or shock value. Not much design does that for me”.
When she first met Sagmeister in 2010, she wasn’t looking for an internship but rather just for a quick meet up and reviewing her folio. Stefan fell in love with her portfolio in only five minutes flicking back and forth. The minute later he offered her a job in his firm. The next day, Walsh quit her work at Print Magazine. In 2012, Sagmeister decided to pair up with the 25 year-old designer Jessica Walsh, changing the name to Sagmeister & Walsh. “Initially, when we first met, what I was really impressed with, apart from the obviously smart book containing well executed work, was her enthusiasm for design,” Sagmeister explained how he became interested working with Walsh.
Above: Jessica V. Walsh
Bold Colours Walsh Although Sagmeister and Walsh share the firm, they had distinguishable style. While Sagmeister likes to use natural and subtle colours, Walsh’s style is more contemporary, dynamic and bright colours since she is a huge fan of using it for her works. Both designers creates a unique harmony which complements each other’s style.
These are three works they did together for various clients. Sagmeister as creative director and Walsh as art director. Top: Middle eastern brand Aishti idenity and shopping bag packgaging. Middle: Department store Aizone campaign 2009 to 2014 before Sagmeister’s sabbatical. Bottom: Meetup identity for web and mobile app.
Comparison
Top left: In 2008, Sagmeister made a huge open installation that says “Obsession Make My Life Worse and My Work Better� which was made my using copper coins with different shades to create the sentence. Bottom Left: A part of Standard Chartered commercial Sagmeister and Walsh did by using sample cups filled with beverage to create depth and make it more distinguishable. Right: A collage by a photographer named Ed Spence. He put his pictures as a huge grid and arrange then accoring to the colour and the value to create a distorted ombre. The three works shows a similarity of using one piece of something as one pixel to create as a whole image,
Comparison
Left: Sagmeister & Walsh work for Levi’s billboard. The billboard features gears that constantly moving clockwise and would form the words “We Are All Workers”. The billboard could not be read unless the viewer came at the exact time or otherwise would wait until the words have completely aligned perfectly. Right: One of the letters from the Eureka Tower carpark in Melbourne, Australia. The letters are perfectly aligned when the car or the person is standing exactly in the spot or else the words will be distorted. Both design requires the person to interact with the design. Either move in the right spot or to wait in the right time to see the result.
Comparison
Top & bottom left: Design for Aizone (2009-2014), a luxury department store in the Middle East. The ads had to be in black and white and couldn’t feature any of the clothing for sale. A follow-up campaign brought in some color and expanded on the use of inspirational phrases. Right: A similar approach of using 3D manipulation, floating typography and white background to create an emphasis to the letters.
Comparison
Top left: Displayed in a casino building in Linz, Autria that says “Money” on one side and “Does Not Make Me happy” on the other. Creating an irony but actually a reality for most people. Bottom left: Branding idenity by Sagmeister and Walsh. SWA is a design leader in landscape architecture, planning, and urban design. Right: 2013 Südpol poster with the similar black and white aesthetics as the works that Sagmeister & Walsh did for their projects.
The Happy Show Other than design, Sagmeister did several talks about happiness. He discussed how adults are unhappy and rather miserable. Although some of them have a stable job, they doesn’t feel content. Sagmeister pointed out how they used their life as 25 years learning, 40 years working, then retirement until they died. In some places like France, Chicago and Vienna, he made an installment about happiness. Covering everything he discussed in his talks about happiness, design, working and living. The installment features Sagmeister’s handwriting as a sign that this was made by actual human who has feelings. And inside, the visitors have actual activities which involve them to do interaction with the design. The art director for this project is Walsh. We could see from the bright yellow colour that identifies with the colour of happiness.
Above: The infographic wall about human satisfaction featuring witty-naked human figures. Bottom: Part of the interactive activity in the installment. Taking one gum from each tube that represents visitors’ level of happiness.
The Happy Film From the sabbatical in Bali, he was inspired to do a movie about happiness, which was sort of an extention from his talks and The Happy Show. The topic of happiness itself was too broad to cover, so he decided to focus about his own pursuit of happiness. Covering encounters he faced such as joy, ecstasy, heartbreak, change, love and death. It took 7 years to make the movie. Sagmeister always imagined if he wasn’t a designer, he would be a film director. But beacuse this is the first time he did such thing, it took him long enough to get the shot he wants. Co-directed by Ben Nabor, they created a 1 hour 33 minutes documentary. It was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 16th until 22nd 2016. And to be shown publicly in Vienna early this year.
Above: International verison of the promotional poster for The Happy Film
Political Contribution In September 2016, Sagmeister & Walsh and some of their contributors made a small project called Pins Won’t Save the World regarding their concern for the most recent US election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They made various merchandise to raise awareness about the election issue especially about Trump. As their name suggest, pins won’t save the world, but the profits of the selling will be given fully to Amnesty International.
“We can’t stand by and let a racist, misogynistic, homophobic man become president of the United States. We want everyone to be able to wear their heart, and politics, on their sleeves, or bags or jackets… we are well aware that pins won’t save the world, but wearing them will at least make us feel a little better, and convincing our liberal friends, especially in swing states, to remember to register and vote for Hillary could make a world of difference.” - Jessica Walsh Top: pins from “Pins Won’t Save The World” Bottom: How the product looked in real life including pin, patch and stickers.
Social Media Although their firm, Sagmeister & Walsh are active online, both Sagmeister and Walsh had different approach to their personal account. Walsh is more active in major social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, while Sagmeister is only running personally on Instagram. He recently explained how Walsh convinced him to get an account for himself and the idea of the feed too was inspired by Walsh. Sagmeister is known for his organized feed of random design stuff and his vinyl cover collection where he would organize them in a certain theme over and over again. One of his favourite covers was from FKA Twigs. But he recently stopped as he promised will buy more album covers to display. He also made an open feedbacks for students or young designers who need his advice on instagram. They simply email him the work in a square format with black background and explain the work to him. If lucky, the work will be posted on Instagram along with the feedback.
Top: Examples of Sagmeister’s album cover posts on Instagram Bottom: FKA Twigs’ “M3LL155X” (2015)cover album artwork
Sagmeister about design: “I am concerned with design that has the ability to touch the viewer’s heart. We see so much professionally done and well executed graphic design around us, beautifully illustrated and masterfully photographed, nevertheless, almost all of it leaves me (and I suspect many other viewers) cold. There is just so much to fluff: well produced, tongue-in-cheek, pretty fluff. Nothing that moves you, nothing to think about some is informing, but still all fluff. I think the main reason for all this fluff is that most designers don’t believe in anything. We are not much into politics, or into religion., have no stand on important issue. When your conscience is so flexible, how can you do strong design? I’ve seen movies that moved me, read books that changed my outlook on things and listened to numerous pieces of music that influenced my mood. Our goal for the future will be touch somebody’s heart with design.” Note from author: Through this process, I have discovered that we (Sagmeister and I) share the same ideas in terms of design and what’s good, what’s not. I always wanted to be a graphic designer pretty much the same age when he realized that designing is more fun than math. Realizing how he appreciate art school more than I do makes me more eager to learn how to become a proper graphic designer and also to share my experience for those in need. I also wanted to design for my favourite musicians like he does. Doing experimental work like he does. Became a person like he does.
Credits & Sources https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=IUHPlOb_9Io&list=WL&index=103
https://www.aiga.org/medalist-stefansagmeister/
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cb9PkJSK43I&list=WL&index=100
http://www.colorsmagazine.com/contributor/ tibor-kalman
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=aKud93B7G3E&list=WL&index=101
“I Heart Design: Significant Graphic Design Selected by Graphic Designers, Illustrators and Critics”. Edited by Steven Heller. 2011. USA: Rockport Publishers.
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=wyQL5qs1Saw https://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/ stefan-sagmeister https://sagmeisterwalsh.com https://twitter.com/sagmeisterwalsh https://instagram.com/stefansagmeister https://Pinswontsavetheworld.com https://www.behance.net/sagmeisterwalsh https://vimeo.com/user13893723 http://design.designmuseum.org/design/ stefan-sagmeister.html
“One Thousand Posters from Toulouse-Lautrec to Sagmeister” Cees W. de Jong. 2010. New York: Abrams Books “Graphic Design for the 21st Century” Taschen. 2003. Germany: Taschen GmBH “The Designer’s Packaging Bible: Creative Solutions for Outstanding Design” Compiled by Luke Herriot. 2007. Switzerland: Rotovision http://www.booooooom.com/ http://designspiration.net