more abstract symbols—like babies (birth of ideas), rainbows (variety of
ideas), sunbursts (the dawn of ideas), and picture frames (framing ideas)—
and it is reasonable to conclude that design creativity is difficult to
represent creatively.
As Mies van der Rohe once said, being original is not as important
as being good. But to be good under these circumstances a designer must
find alternative ways to express the nature of design without resorting to
hackneyed concepts. This, of course, is the very essence of creativity: creating
something unexpected. However, surprise is not always a virtue. Sometimes it
can be as cloying as a cliché and as annoying as any distraction. Effective
surprise—the kind that does not merely shock but influences perception and
understanding—is not as simple as shouting Boo!in a dark room.
Stefan Sagmeister (b. 1962 ), a native of Austria with a New York
design studio, encountered this problem when he was commissioned to
design a mail-poster announcing Jambalaya, the 1997 AIGA National
Conference in New Orleans. Although designers covet such assignments
for the visibility and prestige afforded them within the design community,
the requirement to pack both an iconic image and an enormous amount of
information onto the front and back of the missive creates challenges that
often limit license. Information architects may be stimulated by the
problem of clarifying layers of names, times, and places, but often the
results, though well ordered, are too reductive to be stimulating. Finding a
balance between clarity and the unexpected is difficult. And since this
particular AIGA conference situated in the mecca of Mardi Gras was a
veritable gumbo of speakers and events, the pressures to accommodate and
innovate weighed heavy. Sagmeister’s art school training taught him
discipline, but his instinct demanded raucousness.
After starting his own New York studio in 1994 , Sagmeister, who
worked for two years at the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Hong Kong
and later for eight months at M&Co. in New York, earned attention for
CD covers for the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Lou Reed, and others that
were conceptually startling and eschewed stylistic consistency. “Style =
Fart” reads a banner over Sagmeister’s desk, which for him means that
trendy surface alone is hot air. Instead of adhering to contemporary
conceits, Sagmeister builds his design on ideas that, although quirky and
contentious, are very logical, ultimately producing work that grabs the eye
and disrupts the senses while satisfying his own atavistic need to agitate.
When considering the metaphors for this AIGA poster,
Sagmeister made lists of various design references and New Orleans clichés
—everything, he notes, “from silly jambalaya recipes to stupid Mississippi
steamboats. And I hated them.” But when the conference coordinator gave
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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