Stefan Sagmeister’s newest project encourages long-term thinking and reminds us that many things in the world are improving

Initially conceived in 2020 as the world entered pandemic lockdown, Stefan Sagmeister has created a book that looks at the state of the world today, illuminating, through collected data, how far we’ve come, and encouraging us to think about where we can go from here. Statistics are vividly brought to life, as numbers are transformed into graphs, inlaid into nineteenth-century paintings, embroidered canvases, lenticular prints, and hand-painted water glasses. The book includes a foreword from psychologist and leading authority on language and the mind, Steven Pinker; a featured essay by graphic designer and historian Steven Heller; and a conversation between Sagmeister and Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London and will appeal to all visually minded readers, providing a positive reaction to the tumultuous news cycle of recent years. Published in softcover with flaps Now is Better is contained within a die-cut slipcase and accompanied by a lenticular print designed by Sagmeister. Now is Better is an intriguing and thoughtful visual meditation on our daily lives.

About the Authors:

Stefan Sagmeister formed the New York-based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993 and has since designed for clients as diverse as the Guggenheim Museum, the Rolling Stones, and HBO. His work is in museum collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna. He teaches in the graduate department of the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and the author of many books on language, mind, and human nature, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Rationality.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich, Switzerland) is Artistic Director of the Serpentine in London, and Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 shows.

Steven Heller is co-chair of the SVA MFA Design program. He is the author, co-author, and/or editor of 200 books on design, illustration, and visual culture. For 33 years he was an art director at the New York Times for the OpEd page and the Book Review section. He has contributed to many magazines including The Atlantic, Wired, EYE, Baseline, and PRINT, where he has written The Daily Heller online for over a decade.

Acclaimed designers Sagmeister & Walsh explore the essence of beauty and the transformative power of beautiful design

In this groundbreaking highly visual book, world-renowned designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh set out on a mission: to find out what beauty is and the many ways that it impacts our lives. They turn to philosophy, history, and science to understand why we are drawn to beauty and how it influences the way we feel and behave. 

Determined to translate their findings into action, Sagmeister & Walsh show us how beauty can improve the world.

About the Authors:

Stefan Sagmeister, of Sagmeister & Walsh, is a designer and art director from Austria who currently lives and works in New York City. His clients include the Rolling Stones, the Talking Heads, Lou Reed, and the Guggenheim Museum, among many others.

Jessica Walsh, of Sagmeister & Walsh, is a designer and art director who lives in New York City and works with a variety of clients, including Jay-Z, Barneys, the New York Times, Levi's, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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О книге Загмайстер и Уолш: О Красоте:

Всемирно известные дизайнеры Стефан Загмайстер и Джессика Уолш исследуют сущность красоты и преобразующую силу эстетически красивого дизайна.

В этой новаторской визуальной книге они поставили перед собой задачу: выяснить, что такое красота и как она влияет на нашу жизнь. Они обращаются к философии, истории и науке, чтобы понять, почему нас привлекает красота и как она влияет на наши чувства и поведение. Будучи преисполнены решимости воплотить свои открытия в жизнь, Загмайстер и Уолш показывают нам, как красота может сделать мир лучше.

Для кого эта книга:

Для дизайнеров, иллюстраторов, архитекторов, фотографов, художников и всех, чья работа связана с визуальными видами искусства.
Для всех, кто неравнодушен к красоте и стремится понять ее сущность.

Фишки книги:

От одного из самых известных графических дизайнеров нашего времени 
О красоте в дизайне и искусстве 
Увлекательное и вдохновляющее чтение

Об авторах:

Стефан Загмайстер — самая яркая звезда в мировом графическом дизайне 2000-х. Родился в 1962 году в старинном австрийском городе Брегенц. Окончил Венский университет прикладных искусств, потом учился в Институте Пратта, Нью-Йорк. Работал в рекламном агентстве Leo Burnett в Гонконге (1991–1993).
С 1993 года работает в Нью-Йорке в собственной дизайн-студии Sagmeister Inc. Студия работает в четырех направлениях: музыкальный дизайн, социальный дизайн, корпоративный дизайн (он приносит основной доход) и авторский дизайн.
Загмайстер был удостоен наград практически всех международных фестивалей дизайна, включая две Grammy (в 2005 и в 2010 годах). Клиентами его студии являются такие мега-бренды, как HBO, Guggenheim Museum, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith и другие легендарные музыкальные коллективы.

Джессика Уолш — дизайнер, арт-директор и преподаватель. Вошла в список Forbes «30 креативных дизайнеров будущего моложе 30 лет». Ее работы были отмечены множеством наград на самых известных конкурсах в области дизайна. Среди клиентов Джессики — Музей современного искусства, Еврейский музей, Jay-Z, Snapchat, Barneys, The New York Times, Levi’s и Adobe.

От авторов:

Красота как высший эстетический идеал впала в немилость. Самые уважаемые представители сферы современного дизайна утверждают, что она их не интересует. Художники избегают ее, опасаясь, что их работы причислят к декоративному или коммерческому искусству. Можно пролистать целую стопку книг по архитектуре и ни разу не встретить даже упоминания слова «красота». Когда-то к красоте стремились все, но в начале двадцатого века это возвышенное чаяние рухнуло оземь.

Именно тогда школы дизайна стали пропагандировать принципы модернизма — течения, в котором ценится единообразие, сетка квадратных ячеек, прямоугольная композиция, черный, белый и бежевый. Подход к дизайну зданий, товаров и графики стал чисто аналитическим, выбор материалов — сугубо рациональным. Всякий дизайн стал стремиться к функциональности. Архитекторы и дизайнеры часто доходили в этом до крайностей и начинали плодить одинаковость с маниакальной одержимостью.

Авторы этой книги считают, что отвергать красоту просто глупо. Мы объясним, почему это так, на примере нашего исторического исследования философии красоты. Эту информацию мы используем, чтобы доказать: в красоте нет ничего поверхностного; напротив, красота — не просто рабочая функциональность и приятная глазу оболочка; красота — это гораздо больше. Красота — нечто истинно человеческое, присущее только нам, и красота улучшает нашу жизнь. Красивые вещи не только приносят радость — они и намного лучше функционируют.

Цитаты из книги:

Не пора ли вернуть красоту?
В XXI веке художников по-прежнему считают «авангардными», когда те выставляют в качестве произведений искусства промышленные товары, хотя этой концепции уже сто лет и она жевана-пережевана. На наш взгляд, нет ничего скучнее и банальнее, чем взять какую-либо вещь и объявить ее предметом искусства в 2018 году.

Стив Джобс и красота
Красота заботила Стива Джобса всю жизнь. Разрабатывая свои невероятно крутые продукты, он явно придерживался мнения, что красота не менее важна, чем функциональность. И миллионы людей подтвердили свое согласие с ним, голосуя кошельком.

Мода: последний оплот
Пожалуй, единственная сфера прикладного искусства, которую никогда не покидала красота, — это мода. Красотой можно поступиться, когда речь идет о городах и домах, но когда дело доходит до одежды, многим важно, чтобы форма была красивой. Функционалисты неоднократно пытались воздействовать на моду, и каждый раз женщины отказывались носить их серые робы.

Больше эстетики!
Фантазия дизайнера способна преобразить даже заброшенную парковку, сделав ее местом, где радостно проводить время. Любое неприглядное пространство можно изменить так, чтобы люди захотели там находиться или, по крайней мере, не ужасались бы каждый раз, проезжая мимо.

Практично, но безобразно
Мы провели в Instagram опрос «Какой ваш любимый цвет». Победил светло-голубой. А вот коричневый никто не любит. Мы также провели опрос с фигурами. На последнем месте оказалась прямоугольная коробка. Значит, прямоугольная коробка коричневого цвета — самая безобразная вещь в мире. Но почему-то именно эта форма именно этого цвета была самой популярной в архитектуре последнего столетия.

Красота преображает
Красота способна менять наши эмоции и поведение, влиять на наш выбор — где провести каникулы, куда вложить деньги, платить или не платить налоги. Известно, что в заброшенных общественных пространствах больше мусорят, они чаще подвергаются вандализму.

Just as film, art, music, and literature have the power to move people, Stefan Sagmeister's innovative work shows that graphic design, too, can cut to the emotional quick. His desire is to transform stale thinking, and Sagmeister: Made You Look does just that.

Compelling, honest, and intensely personal, Made You Look covers 20 years of Sagmeister's graphic design. With a text by design historian Peter Hall and annotated with Sagmeister's own writing, the book features images from the studio archive, as well as specific influences and reference points for his projects and ideas. Fully illustrated with a red PVC slipcase and silver-gilded pages, this monograph is a compilation of practically all the work Sagmeister and his studio ever designed up to 2001, even the bad stuff

About the Authors:

Stefan Sagmeister, born in Austria, received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright scholar, a master's degree from the Pratt Institute in New York. Following stints at M&Co. in New York with Tibor Kalman and as creative director at the Hong Kong office of the advertising agency Leo Burnett, Sagmeister formed the New York-based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993. Peter Hall is a design critic and educator who has written widely about design in publications including Metropolis, Print, I.D. Magazine, The New York Times and The Guardian. He has previously served as the Senior Editor for the University of Minnesota Design Institute, written several books on design and currently teaches design at the University of Texas in Austin.

This extraordinary three-dimensional package of Live the Art, is a suitable homage to Jeffrey Deitch’s legendary stature and influence as an art dealer and producer of memorable installations and art happenings that robustly transcended the idea of a mere “exhibition.”

More than four years in the making, and divided into chapters devoted to each year between 1996 and 2010, Live the Art explores in detail the astonishing shows and performances the visionary Deitch mounted in a one-story former garage on Grand Street in Soho that would be the primary home of Deitch Projects for fifteen years.

Deitch illuminates the founding concept by stating, “Deitch Projects was not meant to be an art gallery. The concept was simple. We would not operate as a gallery but would become a commercial version of the ‘project room’ that the Museum of Modern Art and a number of other American Museums had established in the ‘70s and ‘80s.”

Deitch’s original guidelines were simple: his intention was to invite artists who had not yet had a solo exhibition to create a “project” rather than a conventional show of work, and he would provide funds for the artist to produce their visions in the space.
The first artist was Vanessa Beecroft who produced “VB16 Piano Americano-Beige, 1996” which consisted of the immediately notorious roomful of models clad in pantyhose, bras, high heels and matching platinum wigs milling languorously around the space. Images in the book of this performance are accompanied by Beecroft’s notes and memories about the project, and this formula is repeated throughout the book with the artist’s own commentary alongside images of over 150 projects mounted in the space, and in other locations including Union Square Park, Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami Beach, Rockefeller Center, Brooklyn, and Deitch’s satellite space in Long Island City.

Artists whose no-holds-barred projects graced Deitch Projects in its fifteen years include Barbara Kruger, Cecily Brown, Malick Sidibé, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, ASFOUR, Liza Lou, a collaboration between Madonna and photographer Steven Klein, Kehinde Wiley, assume astro vivid focus, Yoko Ono, Jeff Koons, film director Michel Gondry, Dan Colen, Vito Acconci, Stefan Sagmeister, Stephen Sprouse, Jules de Balincourt, Shepard Fairey, and Miranda July, among many others.

A Deitch Projects event launch was the place for an art-savvy New Yorker to be, and the street theater of attendees became part of the events themselves.  As Deitch notes in Live the Art, “One of my goals in starting Deitch Projects was to create not just a gallery but a community. It is very rewarding to see that we created not just a community, but an art family.” There is no question that this goal was achieved, and Live the Art is a detailed look back on every event created by Deitch and shared by this “family” of artists and art lovers for fifteen incredible years.

About the Authors:

Deitch Projects created a new model redefining what an art gallery could be. In addition to presenting more than 250 artist projects during the fifteen years of its existence it created a remarkable community of artists, musicians and other creative talents. After closing the gallery Jeffrey Deitch became the director of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Deitch is now working on bringing his influential Art in the Streets exhibition to New York.  

Stefan Sagmeister is a New York-based graphic designer and typographer. He is co-founder of Sagmeister & Walsh, a design firm that creates identities, commercials, websites, apps, films, books and objects.

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Пролистать книгу Live the Art

In 2000, Austrian-born, New York-based graphic designer Sagmeister created this book's eponymous list in his diary, including twenty statements such as: "Trying to Look Good Limits My Life," "Assuming is Stifling", and "Worry Solves Nothing." These "maxims," which Sagmeister admits verge on the "banal" but which are also devoid of cynicism, were transformed into art projects: "Assuming is Stifling" graced the cover of a Japanese annual report; "Everybody Always Thinks They Are Right" was represented by six 33-foot white inflatable monkeys, each one displaying a different word. This "design book for non-designers" is itself an experiment in form, comprised of 15 booklets in a box whose cover is cut out of Sagmeister's face; when inserted, each completes the portrait in a different way. One of the booklets includes essays on Sagmeister's oeuvre, the most interesting by critic Heller, who states: "This is truly the nexus of art and design in the service of expression." This book is bound to be of interest to followers of Sagmeister's work, as well as to the general reader in search of an invigorating approach to graphic design and, one might argue, autobiography.

About the Author:

Stefan Sagmeister, born in Austria, received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright scholar, a master's degree from the Pratt Institute in New York. Following stints at M&Co. in New York with Tibor Kalman and as creative director at the Hong Kong office of the advertising agency Leo Burnett, Sagmeister formed the New York-based Sagmeister Inc. in 1993. Peter Hall is a design critic and educator who has written widely about design in publications including Metropolis, Print, I.D. Magazine, The New York Times and The Guardian. He has previously served as the Senior Editor for the University of Minnesota Design Institute, written several books on design and currently teaches design at the University of Texas in Austin.

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