Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister’s career began at the young age of 15, after gaining his scholarship to study in New York, he got involved in a lot of job opportunities which helped mould his style, helping him gain more experience in the design field.

After working under Tibor Kalman and M&Co, since he was very much inspired by music, he began to concentrate in designing cover designs for CDs.

Sagmeister’s techniques did not involve much computer designs because he liked to have more choice when it came to using a medium. He mainly created model buildings and use of print.

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.

His work is described as handling new stories that are relevant and conveying honesty.

Sagmeister hated being repetitive because he knew that people would grow tired of his familiar style. In order to remain with fresh ideas, he created numerous experiments and sometimes to test out peoples’ reactions.

His technique involves incorporating his reflective journals, he believed in meditation and that it was not only relaxing but it allowed him to channel his past ideas and improve on them by resolving any flaws. This Austrian designer is often referred to as the bad boy of graphic design. He often displays untraditional designs which create a strong reaction, enough to challenge our current political issues. His style has been described as cunning and unpredictable.He challenges social conventions, and wishes to break these principles.

He always delivered something of shock value like stomping on taboos that the public perceive as inappropriate or something that stirs happiness or joy into your day.

To put it nicely he was described a little bizarre or a little eccentric He is recognized as a crazy man, but in my eyes he seems to have everything figured out in life. One of his outbreaks was posing naked, and wished to eradicate peoples ‘perception. He wanted us to look at this work and not feel embarrassed or see it as something sexual. He understood that being naked was being vulnerable and raw – he wished to empower its image. Nowadays, people are less fazed by this, and he had predicted a world that no longer overreacted to these images as we have become almost neutral.

He is a very dedicated artist, often an extremist. He had a number of eccentric outbursts which often drew attention to social concerns. An example of this was the poster he made for a Japanese show which displayed the results of eating junk food with a before and after, having gained about twenty-five pounds.

Although his creativity is quite alarming at first, I understand how he wishes to make a difference in how our culture perceives things and he goes through great lengths to prove his statements. He is a very positive and dedicated individual and we are fortunate to have him inspiring the next generation of artists. I also like the idea that he closes his studio for seven years and reappears with whole new concepts and designs, I think I would also much prefer to function and work on my creative process and taking a trip to Bali wouldn’t be that much of a struggle!