Stefan Sagmeister is among today’s most important graphic designers. Born in Austria, he now lives and works in New York, where he formed Sagmeister Inc. in 1993 and has since designed branding, graphics and packaging for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, the Guggenheim Museum and Time Warner.

Nominated five times, Stefan won a Grammy Award for his design of the Talking Heads boxed set. He also earned practically every important international design award.

In 2001 a best selling monograph about his work titled Sagmeister, Made you Look was published by
Booth-Clibborn editions. Solo shows on Sagmeister Inc's work have been mounted in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Osaka, Prague, Cologne and Seoul. He teaches in the graduate department of the School of Visual Art in New York and has been appointed as the Frank Stanton Chair at The Cooper Union School of Art, New York. He lectures extensively on all continents.

A native of Austria, he received his MFA in graphic design from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, as a Fulbright Scholar, a master's degree from Pratt Institute in New York.

From A Guest Reviewer

While many designers have explored the relationship of authorship and design, very few (if any) have been able to do it on the scale and with the cultural impact that Sagmeister has achieved.

What is most important is that Stefan has opened the door for design to serve in communication of concepts other than those of buying and selling, products and services, or even political causes and charitable events. His designs here begin to communicate beliefs, ideas and values in ways that engage and interact with viewers in a manner very similar to the ways filmmakers and musicians do. The work in this book may entertain, amuse, inspire, offend or puzzle at any given turn - presenting unusual perspectives, simple insights, funny observations and compelling questions with wit, skill and a good dose of guts.

We can only hope that he will continue to find new and interesting ways to engage the world with designs that attempt to speak to the human soul rather than designs that desire to "brand." And we can hope that he will inspire an entire generation of designers to do the same.