Stefan Sagmeister

STEFAN SAGMEISTER (1962) is among today’s most important graphic designers. Born in Austria, he now lives and works in New York. His long-standing collaborators include the AIGA and musicians, David Byrne and Lou Reed.

Sagmeister studied engineering after high school, but switched to graphics design after working on illustration and layouts for alphorn, a left-wing magazine.

Sagmeister is a bit of a 'shocker' using nude pictures of himself to promote his business as a graphic designer/photographer. He does present as thoughtful person and appears to balance work and life in general. He use reported as saying I will work 7 years then take one year off. Then I will meditate about life and who I am, what I want to do.

When picturing his work it makes the viewer think, why someone would do such a thing, taking the poster for AIGA lecture in Cranbrook Michigan, 1999 as an example. He actually used a sharp object to cut letters and write on the figure, and then photographed himself. Some the writing is in another language, but the biggest writing is his own name "STEFAN SAGMEISTER" carved across his chest, on the other hand he's got the date on as well as the time it was done. Now I personally don't get whether this was the time it was displayed to the viewer, or it was the time he marked on his body. Yet he's got a cigarette box in his hand, as much as it’s interesting to look at this piece of work, but I don't know what he is trying to get to his viewer. 

Poster for AIGA lecture in Cranbrook, Michigan, 1999

Poster for Lou Reed’s Set the Twilight Reeling, 1996