It also reveals even more of Sagmeister than he showed us in that original studio announcement, laying bare his weaknesses, his small, daily human failings, and occasionally his propensity to be, in his words, a total asshole. An exploration into human happiness through the lens of his own life, it is, like much of his previous work, deeply personal, inquisitive, and includes some lovely typography-but it’s also a rabbithole mindfuck of a psychological journey that’s immersive in the way only a film can be, as opposed to an album cover or a poster. Which is perhaps why his latest effort, The Happy Film, shouldn’t come as a surprise, and yet the new documentary-within-a-documentary is probably what audiences will least expect from him. This might be because Sagmeister’s Grammy award-winning album covers include some of my dad’s music heroes like Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, and most notably, David Byrne, but that has less to do with my dad’s taste in music and more to do with the impact Sagmeister’s visually exciting, boundary-pushing, multidisciplinary work has had on the world well beyond design.Ī typographic chair Stefan Sagmeister made while on sabbatical in Bali

I hate using the term “design celebrity,” but even my dad knows who he is, and my dad works in escrow. By the time he published Things I have learned in my life so far (Abrams, 2008), a folio of typographic explorations of his now well-known maxims, Sagmeister had gone from roguish design provocateur to bonafide (and still roguish) design celebrity. It was shocking (and funny), but he had the smarts to back up the provocation-and it had the desired effect, both for his business and his reputation. In 1993 Stefan Sagmeister announced the opening of his graphic design studio with a dick joke featuring his own, very exposed founding member.

Sagmeister things i have learned