SINGAPORE – Stefan Sagmeister explores the possibilities to achieve happiness as a designer, his tactics to make sure his work remains a calling without deteriorating into a job, as well as the chances to design pieces that induce happiness in the audience.
At Spikes Asia 2014, he talked about how it is important to be happy to keep sane. His design studio consists of only six people. He mentioned that every seven years they close shop for a year for space to try stuff out.
They try out different projects to relax and create things that are not for clients. They once tried to make furniture, but one of his friends that saw the works said it was a waste of Sagmeister’s time. He then said, “I can waste my time with whatever I want to do.”
He then realized that they should be doing something more worth their time, so they started a project to make a film documentary on happiness.
“I knew a book would be easily done,” he said, justifying the medium of film. “The challenge would do me good and it seemed interesting to create a project that will force me to do the research to talk to all the scientists and read all the books.”
They are still doing it now. “Filmmaking turned out to be more difficult than I have ever figured out. My background in graphics worked much less efficiently than I hoped,” he said. However, they are optimistic that they can finish it by the end of this year.
He also shared the three levels of happiness:
Level 1: Joy, Pleasure
Level 2: Satisfation, Wellbeing
Level 3: Fulfilling one’s potential
It was a highly visual seminar. It was something that had to be seen firsthand.
