Where in the world is....Stefan Sagmeister?

Stefan Sagmeister is, in my opinion, a rock star. Living legend. Brilliant thinker. I could go on but enough about that. I'm just one of many many fans and other's, I'm sure, describe him with much more eloquence than my drooling cliches could. So google them. 

Anyway, Stefan is in Bali. For 12 months. Not taking any commissions. Did you know? I did not. Apparently, Sagmeister goes on a sabbatical about once every decade. Well, that is the plan anyway, this is only his second one. The first he took was in 2001 and stayed in New York City (where his studio is), just without doing any commissioned work. Just experimenting. In a way, it's almost the exact same thing we (Pratt ComD majors) do in our senior projects. Think of problems and create creative solutions for them. He just does it much muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch better. 

Sagmeister's work took on fresh life after his last sabbatical so he then decided to take one about every decade until he is 65 (his planned retirement year...somehow I don't believe him. In my mind, he's as monumental as Rand and that man kept creating timeless work until the year he died! So again, retire at 65? Maybe..but he'll be making a comeback at 67!)

His first journey into experimentation was such a short distant away because the designer was scared that his clients would leave and he would have to start from scratch. Because this is so forgettable. Hah. Lucky for him, no one forgot him and he came back to a waiting list of clients.

Now, Sagmeister's clients are warned up to two years before he up and leaves, just to make sure no one bothers him. He's also super dedicated (surprise surprise) to making sure he does go on his sabatical when he plans to. Even if it means passing on really exciting opportunities (the Obama camp approached Sagmeister to design a poster for them. More proof that Obama's campaign people really knew the difference between what is great, relevant and attention grabbing as opposed to the political agenda's of the past. I'm pretty sure that elections from this point on will look VERY different than those of 2004 and previous years. But i digress..).

The last thing Sagmeister did before his departure was complete another maxim. The beautiful "Obsession makes my life worse and my work better": 

Any other project has been pushed back until September 2009, so I guess we shouldn't expect him to be back until then. Although not a maxim, another one of Sagmeister's words to live by should be the fact that he gets up at 5 a.m ..."simply because it's more exciting to start working than to turn around and sleep some more."

Definitely one I need to work on. 

The link above is to Steven Heller's website which has the .pdf article (which appears in the current edition of Print magazine) where i got all this stuff from. Just written much better because it's a convo between Heller and Sagmeister...gimmie a break I'm new at this! (yes i will ride that excuse until at least my 6th month writing in this!)