Brightest Young Things

If you don’t know already (and how could you not???) The one and only Stefan Sagmeister will be coming to DC next week. We are giving away tickets to his lecture  (time to step up the begging skills folks) and will be running an interview on Monday morning, but I think we can all agree that we can never have too much Sagmeister!

The debate likely goes on in university design programs around the world – is Stefan Sagmeister the greatest graphic designer of the last 20 years? I won’t wade in on what the answer might be, but I do know that no one has ever convinced more clients of consequence to spend additional money on production than he has. In particular, the music industry is a place where every penny added to mass production is scrutinized – yet here is a man piling on insane details and costs. How does he do it? It is a unique quality, and truly what separates him from the very talented pack. When history describes the stylistic innovations of his peers, Sagmeister will go down as an idea man instead.

We all have thoughts, very few of us have true “ideas” and almost none of us are capable of not only pulling them off on our own, but convincing someone else to fund the exercise - pretty incredible when you fully consider it.

His collection of work in music packaging is framed by a true love of the CD format – something shunned by the designers weaned off of vinyl just before him. Beginning like many before him – with a portfolio rejected by the major labels – he took on a project for his friend’s band. The resulting piece for HP Zinker was groundbreaking (and often emulated – even by Sagmeister himself cheekily.) Using a trick of the eye in placing an image of a face printed in ink that doesn’t show up when slipped behind the amber plastic case, the viewer is startled when the booklet is pulled out to reveal a furious deranged expression. It would earn him his first Grammy nomination and business was suddenly picking up!

Soon, everyone from Lou Reed to David Byrne and The Rolling Stones would have their music challenged by the wrapping on it’s exterior. Just when you thought you knew what to expect with his hand rendered type for Reed, he surprised you with the bizarre modeled dolls of Byrne or the intricate Lion and tapestry for The Stones. Even as clients have looked to him for his typographical constructions born in his personal work, he has constantly challenged himself and their perceptions by constructing them from everything from lint and fuzz, to pennies with a different sheen.

I wanted to focus the column on my favorite music packaging from my favorite tall Austrian - but I have to admit that it is pretty daunting. One might lean towards something that makes you shake your head with a bad case of the “why didn’t I think of that’s,” like his invitations to his high school reunion: Using record sleeves of albums only put out in 1981 (his year of graduation) and then screen-printing the information on top of them. One might show how he can defer to the wonderful paintings of Dubossarky and Vinogradov on the Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” set. One might even be swayed to the obvious Zinker or Reed, Byrne, Stones pieces. Me? I am tickled by the funny sleeve for Hans Platzgumer that harkens back to one of my favorite Sagmeister designs of all-time – his badminton business cards. But in the end it is the merging of look and content that so sweetly melds together in his work for Skeleton Key.

The kitchen sink percussion-based post funk band finds its sense of menace and mischievous darkness perfectly captured.  I won’t go into the usual full musical review, as this is really a celebration of the collected works of the designer and picking out a showpiece, rather than a standard “Judging.”

The way this package truly wins me over is in the tiny details. Nothing is left unchallenged. The use of nine rows of nine using 81 different small circles of images on the back, along with the song titles used to point to the heart shape, and the upc and p and c lines incorporated makes the tray alone wonderful. The same treatment inside the spine (the outside of which has clever flipped type) and the reversed layout on the back of the booklet, combined with a humorous/serious blend of images, means that it would be a classic even without what follows.

However – what follows is absolute madness. 81 evenly spaced holes drilled through the booklet/cover to play up the title of “Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon” that show through to the silver buzzsaw on the disc. Piercing through a sausage, whoopee cushion, puffer fish, band members and more, it is thrilling.

It is one thing to present this idea (note this is a release on Capitol, for a not yet commercially established band) but it is another thing entirely to get it produced.

I mean LOOK at it!

Amazing.

Do I need to say any more?

I didn’t think so.

John Foster puts his money where his mouth is at his very own design firm: Bad People Good Things. He has brand spanking new book out as well with Dirty Fingernails (Rockport).  Those publishers went mad and also let him author For Sale: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport), Maximum Page Design (HOW) and a monograph on Jeff Kleinsmith for Sub Pop Records.