Paul’s friend: A profile of Stefan Sagmeister

Commissioned by Desktop Magazine, Australia - 2014

“Do you know who I am?” Stefan Sagmeister asked, when I was introduced to him at a design party in Rotterdam six years ago. “Yes, you’re Paul’s friend.” I replied, referring to a common acquaintance. This is the equivalent of calling Mandela “Winnie’s husband”, or Madonna “the sister of Christopher Ciccone”. Perhaps I wanted to make a personal connection; perhaps I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his fame. Even at a party with dozens of famous international designers, all eyes are –quite literally- on Stefan. 

The room is the size of a small basketball stadium, with wooden floors and high ceilings, and rows of tables positioned on giant bleachers, so everyone can enjoy the harbor view outside. It’s getting dark, the alcohol is flowing freely, and the last remains of formality melt away. Pierre Bernard stands at the buffet, spots Irma Boom, and coos ‘allooooo. Gert Dumbar grabs a lit six armed candelabra, and walks across the tabletops to shake hands. Rik Comello stands up on a chair, to recite an improv poem at the top of his lungs. Stefan is one of the less conspicuous partygoers. He sits at a table higher up, away from the crowded floor, engaged in quiet conversation with three women. 

If you would look casually, you would think no one notices him. But around his table hangs a palpable tension. Everyone within hearing distance is silent, in an attempt to eavesdrop on his conversation. Their backs are towards him, but their chairs are ever so slightly turned in his direction. At the nearest wall, a surprisingly large group of young people, for no apparent reason, gathers on the stairs. Though they are casually sipping their beers and talking amongst themselves, their eyes are transfixed on Stefan. 

It is difficult not to be star struck by Stefan Sagmeister. He’s designed album covers for Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones and the Talking Heads, which won him a Grammy. His work has been featured in just about every design magazine in the world, in addition to two monographs that became best sellers, a series of solo exhibitions in major museums and a list of lecture requests that could easily keep him on the road for years. He has been a speaker at TED not one, but four times. If he designs a book, the publisher will place the credit line (cover: designed by Stefan Sagmeister) close to, and only slightly smaller than the author’s name, increasing sales substantially. 

His self-commissioned work has propelled his fame even more than his work for clients, for its visual expressiveness as well as its self-exhibitionism. For one of his lectures, he carved the announcement into his body with a razor blade, photographed the results and published it as a poster. For another, he went on a weeklong fast food binge, and documented the before and after effect. On his website, you can watch  his every move in the studio, recorded by webcam 24hours a day.  He published his life lessons in a series of small books, held together in a box with a laser cut of his own face. Every designer who has not been living under a rock the past two decades would recognize Stefan Sagmeister, his voice, and his work, from miles away.

That night, at the party in Rotterdam, Stefan considered my answer in silence. I was standing on a lower level step, and my head barely poked out above his table. The women in his company looked at me with barely concealed hostility. I tried to ignore them, and locked my eyes on Stefan. Behind me, I could sense chairs being turning towards us. After what felt like a long time, Stefan replied thoughtfully, with a soft voice, “Yes, I am Paul’s friend.” The warmth in his reply caught me off guard. I immediately understood that he had taken the time to consider his relationship with Paul, and that yes, this could be described a real friendship. We exchanged a conspiratory smile, and dumbfounded, I move on to my own table. As soon as I sat down, people crowded around me to ask what it was we talked about. 

 Visiting him in New York six years later, Sagmeister is very likely on the verge of surpassing his niche superstardom in the design world, and establishing himself as a household name. The release of his first feature length film on happiness - functionally titled ‘Happy Film’- is imminent, and the design world is buzzing with expectation. 

When I arrive at the indicated address, I think I must be at the wrong place. The door to the studio is squeezed in between a gruffy bar and a second rate hot stone therapist. On its window, a neon pink sticker from another company in the building steals the spotlight from a modest black ampersand that tells me I’ve arrived at Sagmeister&Walsh. Behind the door, halfway up the cracked linoleum carpeted stairs, I spot their full name. Underneath it a small line of text: ‘Third world offices, first world prices.’ 

At his desk by the window, Stefan is recording some voice-over tests on his iPhone. He spots me at the door, and cracks a smile. The young men working in the studio hardly look up from their screens, accustomed to gawking visitors. But not a trace of detachment or weariness on Stefan’s face. He makes a hop-skip from his chair, crossing the length of the studio in three paces, and herds me eagerly into the kitchen. “As you can see, it is very small in here.” He pushes a few extra chairs into the tiny white space. “Even though our studio looks crappy, it produces a surprising amount of overhead, that somebody has to foot the bill for,” he adds jokingly. 

While we settle in, I remind him that we have met before. I don’t expect him to remember. “Actually, I do remember you. How is Paul?” Once again, he has surprised me. I tell him Paul is travelling a lot. “Speaking of which,” he interjects, “I’m just about to catch a plane to Barcelona, I have 45 minutes. Is that ok?” I tell him that is just fine. 

Sagmeister, born in Austria, has never managed -or has never been willing- to shake his thick German accent. Tall, he’s known to wear bright yellow and orange-checkered suits. He stands out from the crowd, literally, and seems comfortable not belonging to any particular group. After a period studying in New York, he accepted a job in Hong Kong, only to return to the US several years later, and staying indefinitely. First working for Tibor Kalman at M&Co, and later on his own. His career has been defined by periods of seven years, with a one-year sabbatical punctuating them, in which he focuses on his “personal development” and doesn’t take clients. Out of these breaks come ideas and projects that push his work into new territories.  

At the moment, he’s working on the product of his last sabbatical, the Happy Film and Happy Show. Both explore concepts to train the brain to be happy, in the same way you might train the body. The film and exhibition are the vehicles to share his thoughts with others. I get a sneak peak at a rough draft of the ‘Happy Film’. It’s hot, and through the open window comes the noise of traffic from the street below. Stefan sits at the kitchen table, his laptop in front of him with the screen facing me and turns the volume up high. While I watch the video, he leans back against the wall, looks up at the ceiling and listens to his own voice. On the screen, I see black and white scene with a younger and more handsome version of Sagmeister. It cuts to a scribbled animation, which in turn fades into a color documentary-style shot. The visual climax comes in razor sharp, brightly colored slow motion shots, where falling foods (crumbling sugar cubes, bouncing Jell-O, splashing coffee and breaking eggs) reveal words set in intricate lettering. The one continuous element is Sagmeister’s signature voice as narrator, in that thick Austrian accent. 

[perhaps a deeper description of the actual lessons on happiness is needed here?]

Being in the editing phase already for several months, he knows each line, each visual and each transition by heart. He’s shortened them, added to it, and rearranged the scenes endlessly. As he stops the video, he says lightly, without a trace of judgment “My previous visual experience is much less help than I thought. All those graphic designers, brochure makers and site programmers who talk about being storytellers? They are all fuckheads. It’s not true.” A documentary needs proper storytelling, and there are rules to it that a graphic designer doesn’t necessarily master. “I’m swimming. I think I’m erring on the side of it being extremely conventional because I don’t know the rules well enough to break them.” 

As Sagmeister has discovered, even a terrible film needs expertise. As viewers, we’ve all been subconsciously trained by years of TV and movies to unravel plotlines and follow character development. Our sophistication in understanding film is extremely high compared to for instance a gallery setting where the Happy Show was set. “The exhibition I found much easier, because the audience is not that spoiled. The visitor to a gallery of contemporary art is so used to not understanding anything, that when they see a show by somebody like me, where everything is so laid out and easy to follow, there is such gratitude!” He sits up straight, his back from the wall, and his hands start to move along with his words enthusiastically. “At a gallery, if people don’t get something, they’ll move on. In the end they blame themselves if they don’t understand anything, but in the movie theater, they’ll say: Fuck you! And I think rightfully so!”. 

The role of design as Sagmeister sees it, is functional. He designs with a purpose. He has one very simple criterion for quality control: Did it work? He uses the email announcement of his new business partnership with Jessica Walsh in 2012 as an example. The card, with both designers naked, facing the camera full frontal, caused a stir and drove over 700 new visitors to their website per minute. “If we design a card to announce that we have a new partnership and nobody sees that card, it is a bad card. No matter if we loved it or not.” 

Still, he makes it very easy for people to dismiss him at first glance as a narcissist. He goes to extremes in exposing himself (and the people he works with) physically and mentally. He literally puts himself at the center of everything, and does not shy away from cheap tricks if they are useful to him in reaching his goals. Like the proverbial tree falling in a forest, is Sagmeister still Sagmeister if there is no one around to watch him?

To Sagmeister, actively seeking an audience is actually the opposite of egoism. “I care deeply what the audience thinks - not so much the design audience, but the real audience of our work. This whole crap about me being 'the designer's designer' is awful. I have no interest in being that. Zero. An artist who works for artists, musicians who work for musicians, I find it deeply boring. I used to think it was the sign of a true artist, but I have changed my mind. I have met movie directors who only want to impress their 3 director friends. It's a cheap, needy, sorry feeling. You have this opportunity to do something for a large audience, and you do it only to impress your friends? Then you don't give a shit about the people you are supposed to care about.”

While his popularity with a broad audience is rising, some of his professional peers are starting to act out. Their questions about his self-exhibitionism are getting louder. But a larger, different sentiment might be lurking underneath. Perhaps designers are starting to feel like he has abandoned their tribe.  

The respect and admiration Sagmeister has earned in the industry comes from his continuous push against the boundaries of design, and redefining the roles a designer can take on. Through his work, he has created new spaces and inroads for other designers. Has he gone so far in telling his own stories, using his own person, and publishing it through autonomous media, that his work can now only be considered as art, and he himself therefore, an artist? To Sagmeister himself, the question of definition doesn’t matter. For other designers it clearly does, as is shown by a growing amount of blog posts, comments, interviews and tweets on the topic. 

To Sagmeister, even a self-initiated film or exhibition about happiness is a piece of functional design. “It has the purpose of sharing ideas on how to be happier with people beyond ourselves. And from the feedback that we’ve gotten from the Happy Show –and we’ve gotten a lot: through interactive exercises during the exhibition as well as through social media –, it appears to have that effect. We’ve had lots of visitors who sent emails to thank us for insights that influenced their life.” He does not state this fact with any visible pride or self-gratification. Nor does the public discussion around his person seemingly affect him. He considers my questions respectfully, and answers them as patiently as if it was the first  time he has had to do so. An imminent departing flight to Barcelona does not force him to brevity. 

To lose Sagmeister to art would mean a sensitive loss for the design world. By labeling himself an artist, he would indirectly imply to other designers that commissioned, functional work does not offer enough personal and creative reward, or at least that he himself finds that to be the case. To have your hero telling you that your job is not rewarding, and perhaps not relevant, stings. But Stefan is adamant that he is a designer. “I always say that this is design work because I was trained as a designer, I run a design office, we publish in the design world, and if we do these personal projects they clearly appear in these promotional spaces, billboards, magazine pages.” With his right hand he softly but resolutely gestures this is the final word. 

And yet… Sagmeister takes a deep breath and moves the laptop to the side. He re-adjusts his seat. “I’m not going to say after 25 years of calling myself designer, that I am now an artist. But then, at the same time, in the future I could see myself being interested in removing all functionality from design. When it probably from that point would become art.” He longs to create an environment where his work does not have to do anything and is freed from the burden of achieving a goal. I’m silent for a moment, contemplating his answer. Sagmeister opens a bag of cookies and gets up to offer one to everyone in the studio. 

When he gets back to the kitchen, he stands in the door opening, almost touching the top of the frame. To help me understand, he offers a parable. “It is the difference between a commute and a walk in the park. There is a beauty in the walk in the park. It is purposeless; you don’t have a goal with it. It is clearly different from a commute.” When Sagmeister still worked from home, he would go on a 15-minute walk through the West Village to make a distinction between his private and professional time. Today he also walks fifteen minutes, but now from his home on 14th up to 25th. The quality of those fifteen minutes feels very different to him. “I will explore that idea further at one time. Then I will call it design with no purpose, and it will be a choice of terminology, and it will probably be called art.” 

For a few moments, the siren of a hurried fire engine on the street below makes all conversation impossible. The forced pause heightens the dramatic effect of his next words.  

“I’m a little bit scared, I’m now 50, and there is a history of designers who become tired of design in their fifties and become terrible artists.” 

Sagmeister has reason to be afraid. Ageing in the design industry is a terrifying process. A continuous stream of young, fresh and inexpensive talent forces many designers as young as thirty-five to evolve or bow out. Technology changes in the past few years have accelerated this process with the speed of light. The superstar designers from the nineties and early 2000’s, lauded for their artistic expression and envied for their financial success, have disappeared from the stage. In a world where you build your karma by sharing and supporting, the mechanisms that kept their fame in place have ceased to work.

If anything, it is a miracle that Stefan Sagmeister is still so much part of the debate. His search for personal development and continuous creative improvement are at the root of this, as much as his outspoken resolve to remain mentally flexible. Two years ago, after two decades of running his own studio, Sagmeister took on a partner, the gifted designer Jessica Walsh, who is half his age. With a big business decision like this, there is always more than one reason, but he readily admits that continuation may have been one of them. Not the most important one, but definitely on the list. “Look at the world of design, and look at who is 60 and doing significant work. Significant work that is new to them, which they didn't do earlier. There are lots of people who do great work now that they developed when they were 30 or 40. But I can't think of single person who does something new.”  After some consideration, he adds “Paula comes close. Actually… Paula Scher. That’s the only one I can think of.”

I look at the clock and realize we’ve gone far beyond our 45 minutes. Sagmeister is at risk to miss his flight. He doesn’t appear to be the least bit stressed by this. We shake hands. “Say hello to Paul for me.” he says. He turns around to pack his laptop up, and throws some cables in his bag. I realize, there is a lot of emotion thrown at Sagmeister: love, criticism, adulation, and condemnation. But nothing seems to stick. Watching him jog down the stairs I think: there goes a happy man.