This is an exercise publication piece. I am not affiliated by Stefan Sagmeister Inc.

The editorial piece is inspired and based of the creative works of designer, art director, and typographer, Stefan Sagmeister. The premise of this editorial spread exercise was to research a successful designer and honor their work by embodying their design essence.

I was incredibly inspired by Sagmeister’s staple hairstyle, a simple 70s shaggy haircut. This began as a response to avoid copyright infringement when using photography. The solution was to utilize the flat outline of his head style as the editorial piece’s main component. It was then used as a leeway for the rest of the writing piece. In the left page of the spread, bananas were used as a type to honor Sagmeister’s amazing nature inspired typography series.

Programs Used: Photoshop, Illustrator.

Here is the content of the editorial piece:

Renowned Austrian graphic designer, art director, and typographer, Stefan Sagmeister, was born in Bregenz, Austria in 1962. Sagmeister began his design career at the age of 15 when he started working for Austrian youth magazine Alphon, named after the traditional Alpine musical instrument. He later studied graphic design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, but later received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute New York in 1981. He continued his work as a designer, which led him to move to Hong Kong in 1991. He began working for Leo Burnett’s Hong Kong Design Group. But returned to New York in order to work with Tobor Design Group. His tenure was short lived, as Kalman retired soon after he began working. Once in NYC, Sagmeister formed Sagmeister Inc in 1993. It is now called Sagmeister & Walsh. The New York based creative agency is a full-time service creating strategy, design & production across all platforms. Stefan Sagmeister continued to lead the firm until 2010, when he offered renowned designer Jessica Walsh a job in this design studio after looking through her portfolio. After two years of working at Sagmeister Inc, he offered Walsh a partnering. In homage to a nude self-portrait he produced in announcement of his design agency 19 years prior, Walsh and Sagmeister announced their partnering through another self-nude portrait. They have been partners of the studio since 2012. Sagmeister & Walsh continues to be a prominent design studio in America, as they have work with clients such as the Guggenheim Museum, Time Warner, and HBO. Music continues to be a passion of Stefan as some of his most recognized work lays with clients in the music industry. He has work for musicians such as Lou Reed, Jay-Z, The Rolling Stones, The Talking Heads, Aerosmith, and Pat Metheny. He received a Grammy Award for his work as an art director in Once in a Lifetime box set by Talking Heads in 2005. And a second Grammy Award in 2010 was awarded to Sagmeister’s design for Byrne and Brian Eno album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Some of his clients are; AIGA Detroit; Capitol Records; copy Magazine; Chaumont. Sagmeister is a renowned typographer and continues to be one of his passions and strengths. In 2016, along with Ben Nabors directed documentary called The Happy Film that centered around his journey to redesign himself. This film seeked to answer; Can he redesign his personality to become a better person?; Is it possible to train his mind to get happier?. The film was produced from 2009 to 2016, and released in spring 2016 through various venues and film festivals. This was a sold-out film and received world wide critical acclaim. Stefan Sagmeister is an active member in the design community and is a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was appointed as the Frank Stanton chair at the Cooper Union School of Arts, New York. His life motto is “Design that needed guts from the creator and still carries the ghost of these gusts in the final execution”. - Sofia Contreras 2019

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