Stefan Sagmeister : Blog 16

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister is known for his unusual and subversive designs that question the designer’s role in society. His works are quite rebellious and he is sometimes known as a bad boy. He is known for upsetting norms in society and also for his tricks used in the design, typography, conceptual art and also videos.

          

  At first, Sagmeister treated his style as an expression of his attitude. His designs show disoriented images. He moved on from a graphic designer to conceptual typographer and also to a performance artist but sometimes he feels the need to return to his role of graphic designer in order to start something completely new. Sagmeister is very dedicated and committed to his work, when he comes up with something new which is always very innovative he makes sure to get everything right, and also catches one's attention with originality. Once in 1999, he had the lettering of the event poster carved into his skin. Another time in 2003, he ate about 100 different junk food in order to show a before and after picture where he gained 25 pounds. This was used for an exhibition poster. Additionally, he once hanged dangerously out of an upper-story window of the Empire State Building. These are just a few examples of what he is willing to do.

            Moreover, Sagmeister was born in Austria in 1962, where he started his career at the young age of 15. He also went to the University of Applied Arts and also received a scholarship to study in New York. As a young designer, he took several different roles, this served as experience in other fields. Sagmeister also worked with Tibor Kalman and M&Co.  After this stage, he began to specialize in CD cover designs. He says that music inspires him. I.D. magazine was a very good promoter for Sagmeister’s cover designs. They said that this artist’s intentions have set a new standard to this field. He used different techniques such as, printing, laser cuts, die cuts, model building etc. Stagmester is not a computer based designer, he loves to travel and experiment with different mediums. He also likes to take breaks in his careers; some think that this makes him not reliable but in fact, this is a trick in order to come up with more original ideas.

          Sagmeister also worked as a text- based artist. In his designs, he included a personal touch but still kept the individual or group in mind. Some of his designs were kept in his diary while others were published in magazines and also used as commercials. Sagmeister also included shocking changes in his own personal business design. He once posed naked on a postcard advertising his new film.

        

   In conclusion, Sagmeister is known for his ways to shock the audience and for his originality. He does not follow any rules and his risky work encourages more artists to experiment and move away from the obvious. Sagmeister is still very active in his work till this very day. I believe that he will continue to be a very important figure in the history of Graphic Design.

“If it’s too familiar I get bored.”

Stefan Sagmeister

Bibliography

Heller, S., 2013. aiga. [Online]
Available at: http://www.aiga.org/medalist-stefan-sagmeister/
[Accessed 14 01 2015].

Sagmeister, S., 2004. Happiness by Design. [Sound Recording] (TED).