STEFAN SAGMEISTER his social and cultural influence on typography
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table of contents 5
introduction
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timeline
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beginning designs
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sagmiester in the music industry
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the human body and typography
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other typography projects
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sagmiester & walsh
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aizone
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more projects 3
“having always w guts o r out for m ks e.” 4
introduction
stefan sagmeister is an austrian designer who has challeneged the boundaries of graphic design throughout his life. he is known for his elaborate, and sometimes odd, typographic designs, and for ‘bringing type to life.’ the rolling stones, hbo, and jay z are just a few of the big names sagmeister has designed for. in 2012, he partnered with jessica walsh, and renamed his firm sagmiester & walsh, and they successfully continue to run the firm today.
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Time 1962
1987
sagmeister is born on august 6th, 1982
1993
the firm sagmeister inc. is founded
sagmeister is accepted to pratt univeristy
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1977 he begins his graphic design career at age 15 with austrian magazine, alphorn
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1992 sagmiester moves to japan to work for an ad agency as a typographer
LINE 2003
sagmiester refocuses his practice and leaves cds
2012
sagmiester partners with jessica walsh and changes logo
2017
1996
2008
2016
he begins working with several artists on album covers
sagmeister takes a one year sabatical to bali
sagmeister directs ‘the happy film’
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e l o h ss a e h t s s i ’ o h ‘‘wh designed t t a h t poster?’’
beginning designs
sagmeister was a controversial designer right at the start of his career. while working for the advertising agency, lee burnett, in hong kong, he designed this promotional poster for the 4as advertising awards ceremony. many of the poster’s viewers found it to be quite offensive. sagmiester simply laughed it off, and his favorite comment from the press was, “who’s the asshole that designed this poster?
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Sagmiester in the music industry
stefan became friends with tibor kalman of m & co, who influenced a lot of his life in design. m & co eventually hired sagmeister in 1993. the company ended when kalman left for a big-time magazine offer in rome. this is when sagmiester started designing album covers. he enjoyed meeting with his musical heroes rather than his typical clients.
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the human body and typography
sagmiester doesn’t hesitate to use the unusual things as his canvas. he became known for using the human body as a way to convey typeography. for this particular poster, he had the letters etched into his skin. he continues to make these kinds of things today. he hand paints and creates everything without the use of photoshop, which is what makes these peices so unique. attention to detail is one of sagmeister’s strongest assets.
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“not all g raphic de has to be sign made by a machine� 13
o t e s u c x e y n “a ay from the get awuter screen is comp welcome�
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other typography projects
in 2012, sagmiester and a couple people on his team shaved their heads to promote sagmiester’s show titled, ‘another show about promotion and advertisement materials.’ the crew used their actual hair to form the typography used on the poster. this is just one of the many examples where sagmiester has pushed the boundaries of design.
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Sagmiester & walsh
on may 31, 2012, sagmeister shared a full frontal nude photo, just as he did 19 years previous to announce the startup of his firm. only this time, there was a woman with him. this woman was jessica walsh, his creative partner. it simply stated, “we are renaming the company to sagmeister & walsh. he replaced his iconic ‘s’ logo with an & sign. since then, the pair have worked on several projects and have made a well-known brand for themselves.
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AIZONE sagmeister and walsh have done work for a variety of clients. aizone is a luxery department store in the middle east. this company is known
t i e r u “ens like feels ade by it’s mns, for huma ans� hum
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for its use of vibrant colors and interesting designs. for several of their campaigns, type has been a leading feature in their advertisements.
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more projects deitch projects: banana wall This project was for a New York exhibition. The display used 10,000 bananas to spell out “Self confidence produces fine results.” Over time, the bananas ripened and changed color, altering the overall look of the piece.
adobe design achievement award poster This is a poster promoting Adobe’s student design awards. It shows a design student creating a trophey out of empty coffee cups. This is meant to represent the endless amounts of caffine designers often run off of. In order to get this picture, they had to be 30 feet off the ground, so they had to find a studio where that could be done.
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adobe: 24 hours Adobe approached Sagmiester and Walsh and asked them to interpret their MAX typography as well as their creative cloud logo. To take this project to the next level, they did this all in 24 hours and live streamed the entire process on a Times Square Billboard.
new york times magazine: resist This was made in honor of the women’s march following Donald Trump’s inaguration. The idea was to mimick the hats many women knitted for the event.
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sva: take it on
These promotional posters were made for the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Many of the team members of Sagmiester & Walsh
have ties with this school, so this was a speacial project for them. The posters were put on display around NYC subway stations.
sva: butterfly poster This is another poster Sagmeister created for the School of Visual Arts. The entire life cycle of a butterfly is depicted along with one of Sagmeister’s quotes spelled out in sticks.
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obssessions make my life worse and my work better
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This is a piece Sagmiester created back in 2008. It is an instalation of 250,000 eurocents on Waagdragerhof Square in Amsterdam which is a three hundred square meter area. It took 8 days and 100 volunteers to complete. After its completion, it was left unguarded for the public to interact more closely.
bibliography
heller, steven. ‘stefan sagmeister.’ aigia, aigia.org, n.d. web. 17 march 2017. ‘famous graphic designers: stefan sagmeister,’ famousgraphicdesigners.org, 18 november 2014. web. 17 march 2017. armitage, jacob. ‘most influential designers: stefan sagmeister.’ jacob.armitage.co.uk. 30 august 2013. web. 17 march 2017. ‘stefan sagmiester.’ creative bloq, creative bloq.com. 19 march 2008. web. 17 march 2017. strizver, ilene. ‘the typographic expressions of stefan sagmeister.” creative pro, creative pro.com. 20 january 2016. web. 17 febuary 2017.
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