After working for Leo Burnett and Tibor Kalman, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister founded his own design company, Sagmeister Inc., where he married his two great loves: design and music. After a few years, he had rock and roll clients as well known as Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne and Jay Z. But even with the excitement of connecting his two loves, he started to fall into the rut of routine.
“To my own surprise,” says Sagmeister, “even though I was running the kind of studio that I had designed myself, I found that designing the fiftieth album cover was not as much fun as designing the first one. Some routine was able to slip in, which made it less enjoyable, and I realized that less enjoyable made me lazier and made the work worse. Once I started to allow for repetition in the work, there was just less excitement.”
To change up his work, Sagmeister took a sabbatical, a year in which he stopped client work, traveled and experimented with new ideas.
At first he feared the design studio he’d created would be forgotten, that he would have to rebuild the whole enterprise from scratch after taking a year off; and he feared the whole idea of a sabbatical would be viewed as an unprofessional move.
“This was in the year 2000,” says Sagmeister, “at the height of the first internet boom. So basically, all designers were very busy making as much money as they possibly could, and I felt if I’m at the super height of the industry, and I close the studio to do experiments for a year, it will just be seen as very unprofessional.”
Sagmeister took his sabbatical, and his studio was not forgotten nor seen as unprofessional in the industry. On the contrary, he was envied.
“We weren’t forgotten at all,” says Sagmeister. “People were so surprised by it that they felt it was worth a story, and we wound up getting more press for not working than we ever got for working. The reaction from clients was ‘Oh my god, I would love to do that too.’ There was a slight admiration and envy rather than any feelings of unprofessionalism.”
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To hear Stefan Sagmeister’s very original life as someone who not only designs for a living but designs to live, listen to Episode One of "Design The Life You Love."
Stefan Sagmeister is a giant of branding, packaging and graphic design, with two Grammy Awards for his work with David Byrne and Brian Eno. He’s the winner of the AIGA medal, the highest honor in graphic design, for his “unorthodox, provocative designs that tweak the status quo and question the designer’s role in society.” He is also the filmmaker of “The Happy Film”, a profoundly moving story of his personal and dogged search for happiness, the making of which made him utterly unhappy, as he explains it to me.
"Design The Life You Love" is a podcast series hosted by renowned designer Ayse Birsel that explores the idea and practice of designing your life. Subscribe on RadioPublic, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
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