Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister Born in Bregenz, a quiet town in the Austrian Alps, in 1962, Sagmeister studied engineering after high school, but switched to graphic design after working on illustrations and lay-outs for Alphorn. At 19, Sagmeister moved to Vienna hoping to study graphics at the city’s University of Applied Arts. After being rejected "just about everybody was better at drawing than I was" he enrolled at a private art school and was accepted on his second attempt.In 1987, Sagmeister recived a Fulbright scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.hes sepent 3 years in the USA before returning to Austria. in Austria worked as a graphic designer before moving to Hong Kong in 1991 to join the advertising agency, Leo Burnett. "They asked if I would be interested in being a typographer "

Being a Pratt Institute student, his dream had been to work at M&Co, Tibor Kalman’s graphics studio. Sagmeister bombarded Kalman with calls and finally managed to persuaded him to sponsor his green card application. Four years later he returned to the USA from Hong Kong and the green card came through. His first project for M&Co was an invitation for a Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Gala.

Sagmeister wanted to design music graphics so created Sagmeister Inc which was a team consisting on two other people and himself. Their first project was its own business card, which came in an acrylic slipcase.

A piece i paticulary liked form this point in sagmeister graphics career was Lou Reed 1996 album Set the Twilight Reeling, Sagmeister inserted an indigo portrait of Reed in an indigo-tinted plastic CD case. When the paler coloured cover is removed, Reed literally emerges from the twilight. if i had seen this in the shops at the times like many others i would have purchased albums regardless of the song quality. i was drawn to the colours at first, they are eye catching and wound stand out on a CD stand. But what really drew me to the album desighn was the idear of Reed 'appearing'.

As well as music projects, Sagmeister carried on taking other commercial commissions and pro bono cultural projects, such as his AIGA lecture posters. The obscenely elongated wagging tongues 1996 Fresh Dialogue talks series in New York and a Headless Chicken strutting across a field 1997 biennial conference in New Orleans culminated in the drama of Sagmeister’s scarred, knife-slashed torso 1999 deceptively blandly titled, AIGA Detroit.

The typography on sagmeisters scarred torso is very crude and to me if you were willing to scar your body i would spend the time to look better. But the typography dose match in with some of sagmeisters other work like  Fresh Dialogue wagging tongues. i do like the way the text appears to rap around the torso showing it to be real and ads depht to the photo.