Stefan Sagmeister has designed for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. He’s a two time Grammies winner and also earned practically every important international design award. Stefan talks about the large subjects of our lives like happiness or beauty, how they connect to design and what that actually means to our everyday lives. He spoke 5 times at the official TED, making him one of the three most frequently invited TED speakers. His books sell in the hundreds of thousands and his exhibitions have been mounted in museums around the world. His exhibit ’The Happy Show' attracted way over half a million visitors worldwide and became the most visited graphic design show in history. A native of Austria, he received his MFA from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright Scholar, a master’s degree from Pratt Institute in New York.
Sagmeister Inc. is a New York-based design and art studio founded by Stefan Sagmeister in 1993. The studio made its name through boundary-pushing graphic design for clients including the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Lou Reed, and HBO, earning two Grammy Awards and the National Design Award along the way. Over the past seven years the practice has shifted from client work toward self-directed projects at the intersection of design, data visualization, and exhibition-making. The studio's central argument: that life on Earth is measurably, demonstrably improving, and that this case can be made through objects, installations, and images that are as beautiful as they are rigorous. Current work includes major exhibitions at institutions across Europe and the United States. The underlying philosophy has not changed since 1993: form, function, and surprise, applied to whatever the problem actually is.
