“Design that needed guts from the creator and still carries the ghost of these guts in the final execution” - Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister, one of my main influences in my design work, his unconstrained way of working, using literally anything as a canvas, even skin, really inspired the way i work and the way I see typography in places. He’s best known for his Lou Reed album cover
the use of type and shape, different sizes and widths and shapes really breaks the boundaries of preconceived thoughts of the neat, block, organised type that everyone believes is needed to create a successful piece of typography.
Sagmeister was born in Bregenz, Austria in 1962 he started his life as a Graphic designer in the University of applied arts in Vienna, He later studied at the Pratt Institute in New York and started his journey into the design world at the age of 15 at Alphorn an Austrian Youth Magazine. His work has been rather music orientated over the years and has designed album covers for Lou Reed, OK go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.
Personally my favourite work he has done for Art Grandeur Nature called, “Trying To Look Good” which involves well placed typography created from various materials arranged in such a way and displayed in natural and manmade structures to create almost an ambient advertisement for life, the full piece reads “Trying To Look Good Limits My Life” This Quotation means a lot to me, how I see this is, stop trying and start doing, stop trying to become something you are not and realise who you are, you will realise you should not ever try to become something you want to be, however much you want it, you should be who you are, and do what you want. Even though this was not created as a piece to make you think, it has inspired me to live my life and create my work in such a way that is unconstrained and uncontrolled.
