Born in Bregens, in the Austrian Alps, Stefan Sagmeister says he was never tempted by the fine art world. After high school, graphic design became his main interest, and he pursued it eagerly, attending art school in Vienna, and becoming a part of a small design collective. A Fullbright scholarship enabled him to study at Pratt Institute, and after jobs in Vienna, Hong Kong, and at the studio of Tibor Kalman in New York, Sagmeister opened his own small design firm, Sagmeister Inc., in 1993.

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An interest in music has led Sagmeister to design projects for Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, and other musical groups, as well as HBO and the Guggenheim Museum. Sometimes called the "Johnny Depp of the design world." he also teaches in the graduate department of the School of Visual Arts, New York, and lectures extensively.

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He is the author of two books: Made You Look and Things I have Leaned in My Life So Far. Solo shows of Sagmeister Inc.'s work have been mounted in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Osaka, Prague, Cologne, Seoul and Miami. Nominated five times for the Grammies, he finally won one for a Talking Heads CD boxed set.

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When did you first develop an interest in graphic design?
Stefan: I was in terrible rock bands, and at the same time started to write for a news/culture magazine, and I think that with those two influences, I pretty much knew that I wanted to be a graphic designer. I also very, very much loved, and do to this day, the mass aspects of it.

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Describe the way you worked early in your career.

Stefan: The text was done with an IBM typewriter, cut up and glued into columns. The headlines, we didn't have the money to actually go out and buy Letraset sheets, so we had donated Letraset sheets from graphic design companies who let us have their old ones. The letters that you really needed, they were all missing, so you had to construct these letters yourself. I discovered that handwriting these headlines was more satisfying and definitely quicker than going through reconstructing the Letraset sheets.

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What is the purpose of design, in your view?

Stefan: Design has many more functions than just promoting or selling, and it is important for us as professional designers to concentrate on these other functions, [such as] information, delighting an audience, raising money for good causes, bringing people together. Ninety percent of what we do is this one single function of promotion and selling, and that's a pity.

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