INSPIRED Magazine

INSPIRED

ISSUE 01 SEPTEMBER 2010

STEFAN SAGMEISTER http://www.sagmeister.com

S

tefan Sagmeister is a New York-based graphic designer born in Austria. He is known to be one of today’s most important graphic designers, with his sinister pieces and out of the box design solutions. He currently heads SAGMEISTER INC., where they claim to design all types of printed material-- from posters to annual reports, perfume packaging and CD covers.

S

tefan Sagmeister had actually taken up engineering after high school, then decided to take up graphic design after doing some illustration and layout work for a publication under the name of Alphorn. His D-I-Y style had developed with one of his first pieces for a poster publicizing Alphorn’s Anarchy issue. The piece involved persuading fellow students to lie down in the playground, forming the letter A with their bodies. Sagmeister’s rough and raw style also had its beginnings when he designed posters for the Schauspielhaus theatre group for the Gruppe Gut collective. His posters parodied theatrical imagery and juxtaposed them with roughly printed text in the grungy typefaces of punk albums and anarchist groups in the 70’s.

Sagmeister received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and in 1987, Sagmeister received a fullbright scholarship award, allowing him to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, graduating with a Master’s degree. His relatively humorous style had developed since then, among his

projects being a business card printed on one dollar bills, since a girlfriend of his was in a tight budget and asked him to design cards that cost no more than a dollar for each.

Since then, Sagmeister has established himself as one of today’s most respected designers, with his works ranging from CD covers, posters and the like. Besides his music projects, he works on commercial projects along with pro bono ones, the latter consisting of his AIGA lecture posters.

To experiment further with his design capabilities, he took a year off in 2000.

His studio, Sagmeister Inc. (established in 1993) consists only of himself, his partner Matthias Ernstberger and an intern. His studio has won international awards, among them being a Grammy for the box set “Once in a Lifetime” of the Talking Heads. Another accomplishment of his is the publication of his best selling book “Sagmeister, Made you Look”. In addition to this, solo exhibitions on Sagmeister Inc’s works have been mounted in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Cologne, and Seoul.

JEREMY FORSON

http://www.jeremyforson.com/

J

eremy Forson is a San Francisco, California based artist and illustrator. ­It is evident how he plays with the dark and macabre themes in most of his pieces yet at the same time retains a vibrancy of colors with the color palette he uses.

Fashion, pop art, and tattoo culture are just some of the inspiring themes evident in his pieces as well.

Not much is currently known about Jeremy as he is in the process of making his works of art known to many people, so far however, this much is known about him; He graduated from California College

R Kissy Face (Acrylic on wood panel)

of Arts and Crafts Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration back in 2005, ever since he has been included in several group exhibits and have established a solo exhibit of his own in 2008. He has taken in clients such as Sprint, Reebok, Nylon Guys, Wonkavision, San Francisco Magazine,Boom! Studios, Sweethead, Ed Gein, Blues, and Graf Orlock. His works can still be seen in San Francisco, California’s bay area.

L Light Thief (Acrylic on wood panel) R Illest of Illustration 09 (Acrylic on wood panel)

R Pain Investments (Acrylic on wood panel)

ADAM PESAPANE (PES) http://www.eatpes.com/

A

dam Pespane, or more commonly known with his nickname and online pseudonym PES, is currently recognized as a film director and animator of numerous short films and commercials most notably for his stop­motion films that have gone viral throughout the web. He received his DA in English Literature at the University of Virginia but have migrated to films as his storytelling medium.

His use of ordinary objects and his way of personifying such objects other than what they are can evidently be seen in

R Western Spaghetti (Stop Motion Animation)

most of PES short films. His first work “Roof Sex” were just one of his many ideas which he cannot imagine being relayed into any other medium other than stop­motion. His interest to make the film precise led him to learn how to animate and from there ideas kept on coming and has continued to go on with using the medium ever since.

He has mentioned that one of his inspirations is Czech surrealist artist and filmmaker Jan Svankmajer.

Human Skateboard (Stop Motion Animation)

Fireworks (Stop Motion Animation)

THEO JANSEN

http://www.strandbeest.com/

T

heo Jansen is a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor mostly know for his living artworks resembling skeletons of animals propelled and powered by the wind. His STRANDBEEST, the name he has given his works, are able to walk by harnessing the power of wind, these modern kinetic sculptures walk in the beaches of Netherlands. His artworks are considered to be a fusion of art and engineering he has work on his strandbeests for 16 years and is subject to the forces of evolution.

The walking sculptures look alive as they move, each leg articulating in such a way

R Animaris Percipiere

that the body is steady and level. They even incorporate primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the machine’s direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck.

Since 1990 Theo Jansen has been occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

Rhinoceros

Strandbeest

Animaris

ERNESTO ENRIQUE E

rnesto Enrique graduated from the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts and is currently a professor teaching at his Alma Mater. He was a member of the Artist’s Circle Fraternity, batch 1972. He is a skilled photographer, whose main philosophy in life is “A Photo a Day keeps the Photographer Awayke”.

He is currently uploading his personal account with much of his musings in photography, featuring the seemingly mundane objects in our surroundings, allowing us to look at these at another perspective.

R Sorrowful Mystery

Sir Tats, as he is called by the Fine Arts community. holds summer workshops, sharing his knowledge of photography to the interested who would like to engage in the art form.

L Egress R Exuberance

L Tension R Serendipity

All works featured in this publication are (c) their respective owners.

BIBLIO: http://designmuseum.org/design/stefan-sagmeister