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- [00:01]
Radi Malinich
Before we start today's episode, let me tell you about my latest adventure introducing Lux Coffee Company, a speciality grade coffee company inspired by creativity and creatives. The debut range is sourced from some of the best farms in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Africa, offering beautiful flavors and notes. Our single origins and house blends are roasted every Monday for next day shipping. Visit luxcoffee.co.uk and use code podcast for 15% off your first order. And yes, there's exceptional merch too. Lux Coffee Company is where art meets exceptional coffee.
- [00:50]
Stefan Sagmeister
If I would have a choice, I'd rather wouldn't have done it at all because I feel that something that's good just has the chance to make a real impression. Something that's mediocre doesn't. So why do the work if it's not going to make an impression anyway? If it's not going to do anything?
- [01:14]
Radi Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinich and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests shared their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. How they learned to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? My guest today is one of the most celebrated designers in the world. Across the last four decades, he's worked with the who's who in the world of music, brands, culture and entertainment. His work has also been extended to books and exhibitions. His illustrious career has earned him every possible award, including two Grammy Awards and a cult like following from devoted fans. In this conversation, we look back at the evolution of his career, at the importance of sabbatical in creative growth, and his deep insights into happiness and creative fulfillment. The interview reveals how strategic pauses and intentional career shifts have shaped his work and perspective on life. It's my pleasure to introduce Stefan Sagmeister. Hi Stefan. It's super nice to have you on the show. How are you doing today?
- [03:04]
Stefan Sagmeister
I'm doing very well, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.
- [03:08]
Radi Malinich
I normally ask people to introduce themselves, but I think people know you. But if there's anyone who's Accidentally listening to this episode and never heard of you. How about you introduce yourself?
- [03:17]
Stefan Sagmeister
I am a Austrian designer who lives and works in New York City.
- [03:23]
Radi Malinich
It's the shortest introduction I've ever heard. Fantastic. It's what I find fascinating that in the world. So hungry about job titles and give us some sort of props. You still call yourself a graphic designer. You're still a designer. Whereas it's so easy to be graphic designer, illustrator, art director, creative director. I think a mast is titles. Have you ever thought about not being just graphic designer?
- [03:46]
Stefan Sagmeister
I mean, I think that recently I tended to call myself a designer simply because the scope of the work quite often now goes beyond what is traditionally understood as a graphic design. So I think that designer is basically seems to sum it up best because in those past 30 years or 35 years that the studio has been going on, we've done anything from furniture to film to more traditional things like websites or books, but also mounted many, many, many exhibitions in places that are normally reserved for art. So it's. The scope has been quite wide really from product all the way into touching on architecture. So it's designer just seems to make the most sense. Yeah, yeah.
- [04:42]
Radi Malinich
I found it inspirational because I think we look for external validation. We give ourselves these starters that empower us. I remember reading some sort of newspaper article. I was like, Stefan Segwit is a graphic designer. That's kind of like, is that an entry job? And you think about it from a hierarchy now, but do you remember the day when you called yourself a graphic designer? Like when you entered that sort of superpower?
- [05:07]
Stefan Sagmeister
My guess would be that I called myself that once I was out of school, meaning I actually did a whole bunch of professional work during school in Vienna already. We were lucky enough to be able to create the posters for a very high profile contemporary theater in Vienna. And another theater followed. And then while I was studying in the States, I did a whole bunch of really proper freelance projects, which of course had all sorts of advantages. When I got out of school, I had a very much a printed portfolio. It didn't really look like a student portfolio, but if I remember correctly, I still felt like a design student. And I probably wouldn't have called myself a designer. I probably called myself a design student. But as soon as I was out of school, I definitely never did an internship. I never had a junior design position. In fact, I think my first real job, I think four weeks into it, they gave me the title of creative director, which was the first job when I was actually employed. And of Course this was in Hong Kong and Hong Kong, I think, was quite loose with its titles. But I think it was also a fact that basically everything that I didn't have any schoolwork in the portfolio, it was all like stuff that I had done while studying. And of course I was lucky enough, specifically in Austria studying is for free, so you don't have to go into debt. But I had a full scholarship for the US So I could also select the jobs that I would do while I was a student according to their potential rather than they needed to pay maximum amount of money, which of course I was not aware of at the time, but turned out to be a real advantage because these were all things that I could later use in the portfolio and that really worked well for my betterment.
- [07:18]
Radi Malinich
I mean, how did you as a student, how did you come about actual freelance project? Is it something that you look for? Is it something that it came through connections or the word of mouth? Because obviously it's not unusual for students to work. But what you describe in it seems quite sort of seamless, fluid process. And it sounds like you actually enjoyed working on this. So how did you find it whilst studying and working?
- [07:39]
Stefan Sagmeister
It was a mixture of, I think looking for it and having a lot of luck. Meaning the singing Vienna. It came about by a medium well known rock star having the hots for my sister who was a model and quite hot. And this rock star sort of like followed what I was doing as a student and quite liked it and said, oh, design an album cover for me, which I happily did. And I think it was a not a bad effort, but it was a bit complicated to print and his record company refused to print it in that way. And he felt bad about the whole episode because I had clearly put a lot of effort and work in it unpaid. And so he, I think to make it up to me, introduced us to a theater director. He had a good part in a rock musical that played in that theater. Unusual for that theater because the theater was quite an avant garde theater and it was sort of their hit show in that year and which was the Rocky Horror Picture show, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And they did a very, very good adaptation for the theater. And we had the chance, we, meaning like four of our students, had the chance to present posters for that play to the theater director and he loved it. And then from then on we did all the posters for that theater, which was a fantastic job because the theater was quite prominent, had a reputation for doing good posters. Their posters were Put all over Vienna. So if your poster got picked, you've seen it everywhere. I mean, this was very, very visible. And it also very much forced us to really ask the right questions from our professors because of course, this was so visible. So we wanted them to be as good as possible. So suddenly it was just a very fortunate thing. Ultimately, it turned out the reason that I got the scholarship was also those posters, because the jury for the scholarship were theater goers and they were quite impressed by the fact when they found out that these posters that they were very well aware of were done by a student. So it all basic. None of this was done consciously. Meaning, like, I didn't do theater posters because I thought this is going to be good for my career. Not at all. It was like a great challenge to do and it was fun. And we were called the good group as four students. And there were little magazine articles written about us because the posters were so visible, you know. And of course we met the theater, the playwrights, the directors, we hung out in the theater. We had spaces for the opening and each. The whole thing was just fantastic. Literally in a small day, made our students be part of cultural life in Vienna. I mean, you couldn't have asked for anything better. And the director of that theater was a quite well known celebrity by being one of the best known theater director in Vienna. So he of course also was a fantastic person to be connected to because he actually then wanted to prevent the city from selling a very old and very famous theater to be raised down and replaced by luxury condos. And he commissioned me for that Save the Ronaka campaign, which I also happily created. And it turned out to be working, which, meaning, like the Ronacke was actually saved, is now a very popular theater in the center of Vienna. So these were just super important impressions during student time. Meaning like that you can actually do a small campaign, get it out there and it would actually work. Meaning it would actually do the things that it set out to do. Was amazing. And of course, very much underlined the fact that my decision to become a designer was a good one. Because you could do stuff that actually had meaning while creating something that could in the best way or in the most successful possibilities, actually be joyful. Yeah, it was the possibility to experience some of the best possible outcomes of design firsthand. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [12:51]
Radi Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding Graphic design illustration all the way to career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day. I mean that's a fascinating story and a planet's better life. And I think, I'm sure you've been always thankful to your sister for having good looks. But you said a couple of important things that we were asking the right questions to our tutors. And I still find this quite mature and I think quite sort of astute in a way that sometimes, I mean going back to formative years sometimes we don't always ask to ask questions. The life enables us to ask better question because we got an understanding that potentially there's better answers. With your little group of four taking on this world of theater and having empowering to see your pasted posters around Vienna because this kind of advertising was the only advertising. But did you feel at any time that you were under pressure that you need to deliver or was it quite a liberating process?
- [14:25]
Stefan Sagmeister
No, this was pressure. This was pressure. And I'm always in between. Is it really good to do a lot of pressure cooking work when you're as a student, aren't you supposed to just also enjoy the learning process free from these sorts of deadlines and pressures? And I think I came to the conclusion that you need both. I think that it's great to have real times as a student, to be able to explore, to really be a student. But then I also think some real pressure can be very good. And I think that strangely I've never really thought about it from my own student experience, but I've thought about it a lot by experiences when I was the professor, like I had much later a experience where I did a semester's worth of guest professorship also in Austria. And the students that I got were not good. I felt that they were some of the least talented students that I've had. And because that situation was in Salzburg and Red Bull, like the Drink company is based in Salzburg and they have a very fancy exhibition space which doubles as an airplane hanger for the airplane collection of the owner of Red Bull. And he does very high end contemporary art exhibits in that hangar. And the hangar has a Michelin star restaurant attached. It's quite elegant and chic. And the wealthy people of Salzburg would go there to openings, because at that point it was much later, I had already quite a big name in Austria. Red Bull contacted me and said, wouldn't you want to do the end exhibition with your students in the hangar? And I said, sure, that would be great to be outside of the school month. Otherwise it would have been probably in the hallways of the university. So we said, yeah, absolutely, it's a great idea. And then I think I had to threaten the students once or twice to cancel the whole thing because the work was not really up for par. But ultimately that idea that it would be shown in this very fancy space, which also means TV will be there, the governor will be there, and it's not going to be your mom and dad and an aunt, but it's going to be the whole art audience of Salzburg will be there. Put so much pressure on those students that they completely went beyond themselves. It was one. It turned out then to be one of the best exhibitions that students of mine had ever given. And so they really benched from meaning. I've never seen a transformation that big in quality. And I think I was quite strict. Red Bull gave us an incredible amount of money. I think it was $60,000. To make sure that the materiality is okay. They gave us their exhibition building teams, which was a very professional museum type exhibition building team. So I think from a production level it became much more professional. But bad work being produced doesn't matter. So they really went beyond themselves. So I think that a good amount of pressure, or at least selected pressure at one point in design school can actually be a very helpful thing.
- [18:21]
Radi Malinich
What a wonderful story. And I think being exposed to pressure gets you almost ready for the world beyond the school. Because I like that you said it was a transformation because when you said you used the word talent, but then the talent was actually offset with the pressure and hard work. Because if you give people the opportunity to actually make something for themselves, there will be still some that actually choose not to do it. But I think what you're describing here, like the word talent almost became as a side point, because it's the pressure and it's the vision of actually that gives you the constraints to like, okay, don't be a fool and actually do your work properly.
- [18:58]
Stefan Sagmeister
And I actually, just a couple of months ago, I met one of those students who is now a very successful illustrator in Barcelona. And I met her at off, but she did a talk at Officer meaning she clearly made a career. I remember another student who had a double page in Imagazine. Which it was a pretty big deal at the time for an Austrian student, meaning a magazine is not in the business of showing student work. Literally, it was a pure pressure thing.
- [19:31]
Radi Malinich
Sounds like a rocket fuel. But what you also mentioned, you said that you already had a name in Austria. Did you feel under pressure that you had to deliver? But with you being so prominent in design scene and a creative scene over so many decades, you must have gone through those phases where you're celebrated, but also you got people for you, you got people against you. Did you ever have times that you were wish that you were unknown or did you always embrace it?
- [19:58]
Stefan Sagmeister
I would think that having worked in the beginning of the studio with actual stars, with big rock stars, I mean some very big, like Mick Jagger, but even let's say people like David Byrne or Lou Reed, I became quite acquainted with the big disadvantages of fame. And actually the best thing I've ever heard about it recently, Paul Simon said in a documentary, and he said, fame, it's a little bit of it is fantastic and a lot of it will kill you. And I really, I really thought that was so true. And of course as a designer, all you can possibly get is a little bit. So I found this to be most of almost all of the time actually advantageous. I've seen incredible disadvantages of proper fame when it came to rock stars. Somebody like the Stones, they can't go on the street. They have to literally live a secluded life. We couldn't even do a photo shoot on the street. It would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds because he would have to lock everything off, security, blah blah, blah. And I think there are some people who actually enjoy that sort of life, but I also knew that I would not. And I think the itsy bitsy little design fame is actually mostly pressurable. And when it comes back to that question, was I under pressure when my students had that exhibition? And yeah, I think I was. I, meaning I definitely remember at least once, possibly twice, threatening them with canceling the whole thing because I felt I was not in Salzburg the whole time I came and went. And so when I would come back after not having been there for two or three weeks and nothing was done, like basically the work still looked exactly the same that when I left three weeks earlier, I felt like, okay, this is not going to work and I'm not going to get embarrassed by doing a terrible show. I'm not sure if I really had my embarrassment in mind, more sort of like I think in general, and I still feel like this to this day, I just don't see a lot of value in doing a bad show like the first show that we did in China. Now, four or five months ago, just I didn't feel was up to par. And if I would have a choice, I wouldn't have done it at all because I feel that something that's good just has the chance to make a real impression. Something that's mediocre doesn't. So why do the work if it's not going to make an impression anyway, if it's not going to do anything?
- [23:01]
Radi Malinich
Would you say you set your standards really high? Because I know you said once that you got sort of mainstream taste.
- [23:07]
Stefan Sagmeister
I do.
- [23:07]
Radi Malinich
But what you describe and obviously your work is perceived as above mainstream. And when you talk about your show and you think it wasn't potentially worth having it because it wasn't exactly to your standards, as I said to you in a pre conversation, a friend of mine sent me actually picture from the show saying, hey, look, it's Stefan's show and he liked it and obviously he didn't know anything. That obviously, you know, and. And sometimes it's our subjective point of view of our lives and our work that trip us up. I think we are always our worst critic. We always want everything to be absolutely spotless and perfect, yet you show it to the regular public and they would not know anything at all. To them that's fantastic and amazing. So has that ever changed or has your quest for quality always been consistent? Did you ever let shit slide? I think that's the question.
- [23:56]
Stefan Sagmeister
Yeah, no, I think I let stuff slide. No, no, absolutely. Yeah. And it's a big question. Even now, I sometimes realize, let's say, when we do exhibitions in a commercial gallery and we have 20 pieces up there and I have my clear favorites, like I know which five I think are really good and which five are maybe on the bottom and then if somebody buys one of the bottoms right away, I'm sort of. I find it interesting. And specifically when it's a piece where I wasn't quite sure, should I include it or should I maybe throw it out, maybe this is just not quite up to par. So I get. I actually that has the possibility to confuse me. And at the same time I find that on those occasions, and they are not all the time, but on those occasions when I work as long on a piece or a show or a single piece as I can, where I feel, okay, I'm not 100% sure if this is good, but this is how good I can make it, right? Now, this is the edge of my abilities. Most of the time, other people like it too. And this is really what I also mean with mainstream taste. When I think, ok, this is about as good as I can do it, then it's more, in many people's eyes, it also works. But I have not done this all the time. I've definitely let stuff slide or, you know, stuff went out where I still felt, hmm, I wish I would have another week to really massage this. Or I think there were also times when I just felt, okay, enough of this. I have to get rid of this stuff now. Even though I felt it could need some more work. I give you an example of where I definitely felt. I don't know if it's good, but this is the edge of my abilities, which was really our first book, the Major Look Book. And that book came out in the year 2000, means it is now 24 years old, which is for a design book that's at least 100 years as far as its age is concerned. And even though definitely some book in there looks dated, no doubt about it, and it should look dated, meaning ultimately, this is graphic design. But it's still in print, it's still being reprinted, and I still get a. I still get a check every year from the publisher. Not the very big one, but it's still being done. And I'm absolutely 100% convinced. The reason that is so is because at the time, 25, almost 25 years ago, we did put that much love and care into it, and so it has that longevity.
- [27:04]
Radi Malinich
I think that's a valid point when you talk about spending time on it, when you said love and care, because things that are chiseled, things that have spent time that people actually agonize over the detail do actually last. They actually stand strong and don't expire. Because of course, we buy books on creatives who were alive hundreds of years ago. They can't tell us about their regrets of not painting the sunflowers in the way they did. So when you moved to New York, how did you find New York as opposed to Austria? Did you feel like you were on sort of endless holiday? Because obviously, when you go somewhere and on holiday, everything sounds better, everything tastes better. What was the effect of the city on you?
- [27:44]
Stefan Sagmeister
I just loved it. I loved it. Being here as a student, when it was a very different city to what it is now, it was quite dangerous. It was cheap. It was exciting. In a matter that I think appeals very much to a boy from Austria as a student, because everything Was like in the movies. I'm glad though that I myself have no big nostalgia for that time now because I'm sure if you could have stayed that way, I ultimately would have left because that level of danger surrounding you was fun for a couple of years and doable for a couple of years, but wasn't really a sustainable way of living a life. So I'm very glad that it changed. It's. When I came back from Hong Kong, it was already clearly in better shape than it was when I left it and basically has in the meantime rolled up with me. I think that at the time, you know, I come from a very pretty Austrian village, not village, town on a lake within the beginnings of the Alps. Quite pretty, very well to do, quite cultured with a great museum of contemporary art and a big music festival, huge opera festival and classic music festival. So a quite a town that you would be hard pressed to find in the United States because there is no such thing as a small town with that much cultural offerings. But because I grew up in a small town, I was always gravitating to big cities, even very young. I went to Zurich and Munich and then it was clear I'm going to study in Vienna, which was much further away than let's say Innsbruck, which would have also been possible, or Graz. And when I had this opportunity to study in New York, I basically loved it right away. Like a real, like a logo of a metropolis. And because of my time in Hong Kong turned out to be quite regional. So I had a chance to do some stuff in Bangkok and in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. I got to know other big cities, other big metropolises. Hong Kong definitely would qualify as one itself. And it became very clear that New York is offering much more of the things that are interesting to me than those other cities in Asia. But I was quite clear that I would want to return to New York. And I came here on a wedding and then Tibor offered a job and that was it. It was like, yeah, absolutely, I would love to work for my favorite design company at the time in New York. And I took a big pay cut because my position in Hong Kong was very commercial and it paid very well. So I think my check was cut into a third from what it was in Hong Kong. And it was still very influential for me to be around Tibor. But then he actually wanted to dedicate all of his time to Colors magazine, which he had co founded and moved to Rome. And then I basically had no other choice than to open my own space.
- [31:12]
Radi Malinich
Anyway, did it feel a bit daunting that you took a two thirds of a pay cut, Thibault asked you to join him, then Thibault left, and then you're in New York, which luckily is now in a better shape, as you said, but all of a sudden you had to stand on your own feet again. Was it pressure? Was it exciting? How did it feel? Because obviously now you've got the freedom to actually stay your destiny in the way you want. So that comes with those questions, like, okay, you're in New York, you've not been there for more than six or seven months after Steve left. And a regular question will come to mind, like, how did you get work? What did you do? Obviously, like you've had connections and you've something obviously been happening, but how do you set up a business in New York from scratch because you actually have to do it?
- [31:57]
Stefan Sagmeister
It was exciting, not so much daunting. The reason was because when Tibor said he's going to move to Rome, I was not disappointed. I had come back to New York for Tibor, but working there wasn't quite what I had in mind. I loved being around Tibor, but Tibor basically had brought me there to one among company which I was ready to do. But I think he didn't quite know how to let me run it and I didn't know how to take it from him. But when I basically in Hong Kong had started a design group under the wings of an ad agency, but this was my group, I hired everybody, I made decisions about clients, I made decisions about how much we should charge. So I really ran that same among company at Tebow's place. I was more like a senior designer, which I wasn't quite ready to go back to. Also I think from a purely how do I want to spend my day point of view, because for me, I could not really design the whole day. Like I can design a couple of hours on a good day, maybe four, and then I have to do something else. So in Hong Kong, this was a good mix for me. I would design in the morning and then meet clients, whatever, do check the finances, do all of that easier stuff in the afternoon. And so having already done that in Hong Kong, the idea for me to run a small design studio here didn't seem that daunting. Also because ultimately, even as a student, all my clients were not design studios, they were real clients. So I had to send builds to them, send estimates. So I had some experience in how to do that. And I felt like when it dawned on me that I could open a small studio that would keep small but would really specialize in the music industry, like ultimately do album covers. That was my dream as a 16 year old of why to become a designer. I just felt, oh this like I felt a very warm feeling in my belly. I felt like this is exciting. I really would love to do that. And I felt it probably wouldn't need much. You know, I could do this with an assistant, maybe two. This wouldn't need to be a gigantic operation or so. And also that felt very good having had a pretty small group in Hong Kong, we were about five or six, but having felt very comfortable with running a small group or a small design group. So this just felt very good. And then to your, the second part of your question. How do you go about this in the States? Of course it's very easy. You incorporate from a legal point of view, you just incorporate in my case as an S corporation, costs a thousand bucks. So that's very easy to do. And then how do you find clients? This was of course the more difficult part, specifically how to find music clients. And so what I did was I found out who is the creative services person at the records company. Because you know, this was 90, which was pre Internet time. This was not something you could Google. All that stuff didn't exist. So this was quite a piece of work to figure out who are the record companies, who is the person responsible there. And I found that a good number of them were in New York, most of them were in Los Angeles. So I did a trip to Los Angeles, sending mails beforehand. And because I had worked at Emmanuel Co. Which at the time was very prominent and had a fantastic reputation, I could definitely get a meeting. So I met up with the record companies in Los Angeles, I met up with the Buns in New York and I had a portfolio that at that point had two album covers in it. I had done one album cover for Yellow Magic, Hocus Brothers, which is Akamoto at MM company and I had done another one in Hong Kong. And the rest of it was all other kind of work but the work was fine and the record label sort of the overall reaction after the meeting was this is good, we're going to give you jobs. But then ultimately no jobs came about and I did manage on that front to do an album cover where I knew the singer. There was a New York rock band that played cbgb, sort of an underground rock band called HB Linker that had an Austrian singer who I knew and we did an album. We Did a cover for them and that cover got nominated for a Grammy. It didn't win, but it got nominated for a Grammy. And that made the difference because the creative services people at the album, at the record labels, do of course follow the Grammys. And they thought, ah, he doesn't just have it in the portfolio, he can actually see it through, that it actually works even for an independent labels. And then after that the jobs came in. And in the meantime I also did non music jobs that I got introduced to through Emmanuel Co. One that I got introduced to by a friend of mine that I had studied with at Fred, who is a product designer. And it was a toilet seat that she had designed and she needed typography for the remote control for the toilet seat. And then we got more from that client, the Japanese bathroom company. And number three was a little campaign for sweet jeans stores that my brother opened in Austria. So ultimately, while I tried to get music jobs, those three were the first jobs that I actually got in the studio. All of them through people I know. And I think that if anybody who is listening, who is thinking of opening a design studio, I think that's the way to do it. Meaning that you would ultimately think of every single person in your surrounding and what you could possibly help them with your design abilities and then write to them, send them something, do something for them, get to meet them, offer them. I think that's the best way to do it.
- [39:03]
Radi Malinich
I absolutely agree because it proves the power of meaningful connections. You mentioned at the beginning of product conversation that you dealt with your fame by being surrounded by people like Brian Ito and others. And I think it says that you are an average of the five people that you hang out with. So I think having that start in New York and sort of going after the musical work obviously set you in the world, that you surrounded yourself with something that you wouldn't get in Austria, something that didn't exist apart from other sort of cities.
- [39:33]
Stefan Sagmeister
Oh, and there's no doubt that the studio got well known because the fame of our clients dropped up on us. Meaning, no doubt about it. Yeah, that was the case for sure. But it's meaning we haven't done an album cover in 20 years easily. So clearly I think that really helped us to be known within the industry for sure. And I hope that in the meantime, or I also see that we've done so many other things, the exhibitions to the film, to whatever, to furniture, that I think that this is like more in the background now, because didn't you.
- [40:14]
Radi Malinich
Have in your creative Life a different sort of almost like check stops to thinking, like, okay, enough of music, enough of this. Because the variety, I think, in designer's life is that the ability to pivot, you can pretty much reinvent your career as often as you want. Because I think when we launch our businesses, when we launch our careers, like, we want to hang on the thing that's coming to us and never want to change, whereas we find ourselves getting to the pinnacle of what we actually want to achieve, only to find ourselves unhappy. And obviously, you quite famously did a big body of work on unhappiness, because personally, I only found out the true concept of your movie just recently. But I built my studio to the point where I absolutely always desired to have it. I had the clients, I had the work, we had the money. It looked great, it was busy, and I was desperately unhappy. We had a second child. Like, it was. The life was chaos. And it's like, why is it that it hits us at the point where we least expected that we should be celebrating? We are celebrated that everything's working. We've actually achieved what we wanted to achieve, yet we seem to suffer with that universal, over the hill kind of decline of happiness going. Why? How What I think we, one of us, as you felt today was like, you've worked on so many different methods of trying to actually be happy. But let's talk about the element of achieving what you wanted to achieve and then realizing what next.
- [41:44]
Stefan Sagmeister
Well, I think that Danny Gilbert at Halberd talks quite educatedly about this because the front low in our brain is the least developed part of the brain, as opposed to, let's say the reptile brain, very much in the bat. And because of planning is in the frontal lobe. We are actually quite bad at planning, or in this case specifically, we're very bad in knowing what will make us happy in the future. He actually did a study, a little bit convoluted, but ultimately still with a quite clear result where he could show that if you sit and think what will make me happy in the future and then make lists and just try to figure it out yourself, your results are going to be less accurate than if you ask a stranger who does that sort of thing of what you're thinking of doing and interview that stranger about his or her life and how that actually looks like that thing that you're thinking about doing, that the accuracy in talking to the stranger is more precise than trying to figure it out in your own frontal lobe. And I think that I've seen that with numerous rock Stars that ultimately wind up doing something for charity. And I think many people feel, oh, the stupid rock star. Now they're like trying to lift their profile by doing something charity, which in most cases is not the case at all. I mean, I think that Sting almost ruined his career by doing charitable things. What happens is that you finally achieved your life goal, which is being a rock star, when playing stadiums in front of 50,000 people and fuck, it doesn't make you as happy as you thought it would. I'm sure it gives you quite some adrenaline jolts, but it clearly doesn't put you into that Nirvana stage that many people think rock stars ought to be in, with that much admiration going towards them evening after evening on tour. And I think that a part of that is really happening to all of us. I think that in many ways, unbeknownst to that, I was able to circumvent a part of it, not all of it, but a part of it, simply by this ingenious idea to go on sabbatical every seven years. So pretty much all the time, when I feel this is working, this is really. Now we are getting into this. As I was with the music world in the first seven years of the studio, as I was with a more NGO good client world in the second part of the studio, as I was with creating exhibitions for beauty and happiness, but also with the film in the third part of the studio. And I'm about to go on sabbatical next week. I'm leaving on Wednesday for Madrid, Guadalajara and Buenos Aires. Four months each for a full year. And I think that just being thrown up, thrown out of my regular daily movement thinking patterns, is avoiding not all of it, but a good part of this. And it definitely is the chief reason for the different directions that the studio took. I could easily see that we might still be doing CD covers otherwise and wondering why business is so bad and because we all me for sure. But I think many of us tend to get stuck in the thing that we do and do it over again, because that's also easier for us. It's much more difficult to really change. And I think that these sabbaticals allowed for that change, allowed to even think. The main reason why I said in the year 2000, actually, maybe I've done enough album covers. Maybe it should be something different. There's other interesting things out there. Maybe we'll stop doing album covers was the sabbatical. I would have never had the werwith all to stop otherwise. And now, looking back purely now from a work Perspective. Most, but not all, but most of the projects that I now think were worthwhile to do, like the exhibitions on happiness or beauty, but like this whole series about things I've learned in my life so far. But many others came out of thinking that was done in the sabbatical and probably would have never seen the light of day without the sabbaticals. So it's sort of almost a little bit scary looking back and saying I would have done none of the work that's now dear to my heart.
- [47:15]
Radi Malinich
With your quite well documented sabbaticals and the one that's coming now, I think you said that you were worried and almost once lied that you were going to going away and pretending you were not going away because you thought that people will. Clients will desert you and the business will close. I think it's our survival instinct because we are almost preconditioned to think, okay, there's a timer, I need to pay my mortgage, I need to pay my rent, I need to pay. And it all happens in 30 day cycles. We don't feel like we actually get a respite from all of this. Like this is the life we've chosen, this is the life we've been given and that's how the society and economics works. So with the first sabbatical, I mean you've opened your studio in 93, you went on sabbatical in 2000. That to some studios is just the beginning. How did you feel? Did it change your perception of work? Because I know personally from taking semi sabbatical from design work and focusing on other activities that it froze you almost physically, it froze you literally. You used to showing up for work every day and then you. Not obviously if you do it in Bali, maybe, hopefully that's a different thing. But how did you feel? And during every sabbatical did it have gradually smaller effects on you or.
- [48:25]
Stefan Sagmeister
Well, I was definitely scared the first one very, very much so. About of all those things that you said, all the clients believe they will never come back. It will be seen as unprofessional. All that stuff that ultimately did not happen, people did not think it was unprofessional. Clients thought would be offensive, they would love to do it too. I of course am working in the sabbaticals, meaning I'm trying out stuff like it's. I'm not the type of person who loves to sit on a beach, which I didn't. Not even in Bali, not at all like I was because I like to work specifically like to work when there Is no goal like that. All the goals are set by me that it's. You know, I can literally just. I made a list of things that I'm interested in and then put that list into hourly. Five hourly. Two hourly pieces in the schedule. So that's to really get going or to make sure that I would be doing the things that I actually am interested in. The first time I was definitely scared. The second time I was not because it had clearly proven it's worth. And the third one, I'm not scared at all now meaning it starts next Wednesday but I'm not scared about it at all. 0 and it's also meaning I have to say now this time it's also quite a bit different because the last five years I've already been doing whatever I wanted to do. Basically the last five years we did not accept any commercial or promotional or jobs that advertise anything. And we're pursuing this whole long term thinking idea or this idea that if you look at the world from the long term it looks into the exact opposite as the short term it's. I think that this will also render this sabbatical somewhat different because some of those projects I will still presume so it's. The rules for sabbaticals are pretty loose. I think the only one that is sort of steady is that it should be different from the ones before. So obviously these are different cities and I also do it for the first time with my partner. So my partner is going to come which also render it very, very differently. So we'll see.
- [50:47]
Radi Malinich
Do you think that sabbaticals with their magical powers can sometimes emulate the work career, the work path because obviously you offsetting the constraint, let's say the client projects or now you do exhibitions and stuff. And now you got slightly looser concept that sometimes we need that freedom and limitation because the concept of happiness. I think once in your talks you used a quote from Stumbling on Happiness when you said these days we can live where you want to live. We can marry who we want to marry, speak the lines. We want to speak obviously like we actually have almost devoid ourselves in most cases. And that's not applicable to everyone on this planet. But as humans obviously we function on challenges. We've got this sort of survival instinct. We need challenges, we need sort of problems to solve. And then when you actually remove the problem and obviously you pursue it more or less happiness Buddha did you ever actually think that sabbatical might not deliver?
- [51:46]
Stefan Sagmeister
Well, that's why I actually put my own limitations on it if I would just basically start the sabbatical with, okay, now I'm not pursuing anything and I can do whatever I want, I think I would get lost. I don't think that this much limitless freedom is easy to deal with. Definitely not for me. But it might not be easy to deal with for most people, even meaning if you look at pretty much any artist out there that ultimately she or he could do whatever they want, but they all set their own limitations in order to be able to work within them and even they break them and go beyond them. But ultimately I think we do need these guardrails to make anything worthwhile. And you see it even with new technologies, when they come out and offer an incredible amount of possibilities, most of the work that's done in them. You saw that in the first couple of in early Photoshop was crap because everybody sort of like uses the easy filters, everything looks the same, the work is terrible. Or you see a similar situation right now in AI. I'm sure that there will be unbelievably fantastic work done in AI once we figure out certain limitations or once we build our own limitations and work within those. But right now prompting pink dinosaurs is not going to create anything of real value.
- [53:31]
Radi Malinich
I think there's a whole another conversation to talk about the future of creativity. But I still want to circle back for one last question on this topic. Is how do you define happiness now? Your personal happiness or the concept of happiness? And has your perception of happiness changed?
- [53:48]
Stefan Sagmeister
I mean I would say the easiest way to define it would be by time frame. So you have something like very short happinesses that can last a part of a second, the happy moment, or possibly can last a couple of seconds, like even an orgasm would be part of that. Then you would have something like that's closer to satisfaction. That would be having a fantastic Sunday afternoon on the couch with the paper, just feeling good with that little freedom of the sun. And so that's mid term happiness. And then you have the long term happiness that could last a lifelong, like finding what you're good at in life and being able to work within that. That's much closer to meaning. And those things really have very little to do with each other. Orgasm is very different from finding the meaning of life, but they are still big title of happiness. And I would say the conclusion that I got after having worked on that film for eight years and the exhibition was one that ultimately Jonathan Haidt had already written in his book that I knew all along understood, but because I had just read it in a book, could not really implement in a meaningful way in my life. And so what he says and what I really found to be true is that it's not really possible to pursue happiness. But what is possible is I can look at all my relationships, the close ones and the far ones, and I can see if I can lift them up onto a somewhat higher level, maybe get rid of the bad ones, support the good ones. And then here and there, when I don't expect it, little pieces of happiness might occur that come out from in between those relationships. And I can try to do the same with my work and I can try to do the same with something that is bigger than me. Could be politics, could be some charity, could be something about the environment. And if I'm able to do that, my overall level of happiness, like those little pieces of happinesses that come out from in between, they'll come out more often, but not through direct pursuit. And I found that to be actually really true. And I found that here and there I was able to do exactly like it. My work say, okay, I've done enough of these kind of jobs. I have nothing against promotional or advertising jobs, but simply I felt that I've done my share of them in my life. When I make a decision, I am not going to do them anymore. Even if very lucrative, very high profile jobs are offered, I will give them to people that I know, I will recommend somebody else and I will pursue these things that I find more interesting now. And I can say that ultimately that decision led to itsy bitsy pieces of happinesses coming out from in between more often.
- [57:18]
Radi Malinich
I managed to sneak in a segue to my talk. I did a talk just before you did your conversation with Ben Tallon at our festival. I was on a stage about two hours prior, like earlier in the day. My talk is very heavily geared towards sort of mental health and how do we metabolize this? And my segue was that Stefan segments will be here and he'll tell you, now is better, but I will tell you that it's also heavier than ever before. Because would you agree that our perception and obsession and awareness of happiness is so much more heightened that sometimes you feel like you have to chase your happiness because people ask you, are you happy? Are you doing this? Because it feels like there's a lot of societal pressure on this.
- [58:02]
Stefan Sagmeister
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there is quite a good number of material about that pressure to be happy, specifically in the United States, that ultimately makes many people unhappy, or I would think that the entire self improvement industry in many cases is very fraught because they promise things that they can't hold. Many of the books that I also read, meaning I read probably 100 in gearing up towards the film, have on their backs cover some sort of text that in some way or another makes you believe that reading this book actually will lead in some way to greater happiness, which it almost never can deliver. Not because the content of the book is wrong necessarily, but because your connection to that content as a reader of the book is just too loose. It's just not intense enough. Which is why a therapist giving you the same content as the book has a much bigger chance of actually being successful simply because you have a bigger connection to a therapist in the same way that a personal trainer might be more successful in you losing weight than if you just buy two weights and try them out at I think you.
- [59:24]
Radi Malinich
Sort of expect a lot of accountability because yeah, the blurbs on the back of the books are not always written by the author, is written by the publisher in a way to sell the book. So obviously what's in the book, obviously it requires a level of discipline to actually go through it and implement it. And that's why personal trainers in the gym obviously got much more successful in earning money because actually you already have to go and be accountable to someone. So on the concept of happiness and the future, do you have a vision of yourself where you want to be after when you come back from a sabbatical and carry on?
- [59:55]
Stefan Sagmeister
No, I'll let the sabbatical happen and I'll see what kind of influences will come out of it. But it's in this case I can really leave it fairly open because the past five years have been very good five years. And I have thought that the kind of work I was doing is the kind of work that I'm supposed to be doing right now at my age, at where I am in my life. So I could easily see doing more of the same or if it presents itself, doing a version of that, or possibly even something totally different. I'd be surprised though, in this case because I feel there is still so much negative messaging in media, both traditional and social out there. And I don't expect that to change anytime soon that the idea of putting something against that or visit so that it's not just the whip that is offered, but also a little bit of the carrot still seems to be worthwhile and possibly meaningful. So I'll see.
- [61:08]
Radi Malinich
I wish you safe travels and honestly, a lot of happy times in a way to see what happens.
- [61:13]
Stefan Sagmeister
Perfect. Thank you so very much. It was a pleasure.
- [61:16]
Radi Malinich
Pleasure. Thanks for coming. Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. Love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radi Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bytes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.