Biography
Stefan Sagmeister formed the New York based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993 and has since designed branding, graphics and packaging for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, the Guggenheim Museum and Time Warner. Having been nominated five times for the Grammies he finally won one for the Talking Heads boxed set. He also earned practically every important international design award.
In 2001 a best selling monograph about his work titled ‘Sagmeister, Made you Look’ was published by Booth-Clibborn editions.
A native of Austria, he received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright Scholar, a master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York.
Good vs Evil.
A conversation between Stefan Sagmeister and K.F.
{14th of March 2005}
‘Style = Fart’ has been your motto for some time. Has its meaning changed for you over the years?
Yes, absolutely. I don’t believe in it any more.
When we opened up the studio there was a little sign up there that said ‘Style = Fart’. It was brought down by water damage and never replaced. And the reason is; in the beginning of the studio I thought it would be helpful, or even necessary, to use a certain style for every single project… And once we used one style, it had to be another style for the next project. That, in itself, became a little bit boring – this constant jumping. But also, there is a danger that you just simply rip off historic styles, or even new styles developed by other designers, to fit your project.
So, at that time, I thought repeating a style would somehow be lame, but I have completely changed my mind since then. Around five or six years ago, I started to acknowledge things like having used handwriting once but that I can use it again. And maybe I can push it. Maybe I can see that it might be used in a different way and so now, using it again is not disallowed, which I think definitely changed the look of our projects.
I discovered that very good style and good form are important if you have something to communicate. It’s as simple as, for example, if I go out on a date and the girl is very good-looking (that is, she has good form) and she is very well dressed (that is, she has good style) I am going to be much happier meeting her to see whatever she has to say. Now, of course, if she is absolutely bland and has nothing to say, the good style and the good form wouldn’t really create a long-term relationship
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© Finn 2011
(The rest of this article appears, in print, in Open Manifesto #2)