Core77

The Happy Film: Stefan Sagmeister gets Happy

By Andrew Shea - August 5, 2011

in Video | Graphic Design

Written with additional reporting by Christina Beard

Stefan Sagmeister held a single flower as he stood in a busy market on a sunny day and complimented women who walked past him. This celebrated graphic designer was on a mission to prompt a smile, start a conversation and get a date. Women generally ignored his flattering words, making for a series of hard-to-watch interactions that show Sagmeister at his most vulnerable. This scene was screened last night at the School of Visual Arts Theatre in New York City, as a teaser for Sagmeister's forthcoming feature length film called The Happy Film.

The event was advertised as a fundraiser for The Happy Film. While the $50 entrance fee seemed steep, audience members were promised a presentation by Sagmeister, a screening of an excerpt of the film, along with a Q&A with Sagmeister and Hillman Curtis, the film's Co-Director and a renown web designer of sites like Yahoo!, Adobe, and Metropolitan Opera. Curtis is known for being able to capture the essence of his subjects, including graphic designers Milton Glaser, David Carson, and Paula Scher. This was not the first time these two worked together; Curtis documented Sagmeister's solo exhibition at Deitch Projects in 2008.

Sagmeister has researched the topic of happy for many years now and even gave a TED Talk about it last year. "I wanted to make a film about happiness, but it was too vague," he said. "So I wanted to make a film about my own happiness, something that I was very close to." The film incorporates strategies that Social Psychologists recommend to improves ones overall happiness. Stefan even recruited professor Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, to work as an advisor on the film. The film aims to explore questions such as, "Is it possible to train our mind in the same way that we train our bodies?" and "Can we change our behavior to make us happier?"

Sagmeister devised a three-step plan-of-action to better-understand happiness. The film will document his personal experiments with Meditation, Cognitive Therapy, and drugs in order to reach a heightened state of happiness. Sagmeister completed the meditation portion in Bali over the course of 90 days. During this time, he discovered a recipe that could produce happiness. He described the ingredients as, "a careful selection of 12 songs, a moped on a small winding road in Bali, and the wind flowing through my hair. This always sends the chills through me," he said.

Curtis will continue to document and edit footage from this experiment. During the Q&A, Curtis described wanting to pair footage of Sagmeister's experiment with narration, reenactments, and animations. Sagmeister's environmental titles for the film were shot in Bali.

But more than the beautiful hand-made lettering, we hope to see more scenes of Sagmeister taking risks like he did by trying to start a conversation with strangers on the street and drawing lessons from those experiences. During the concluding Q&A, Sagmeister said that his goal for the film is for people to relate to at least part of it and possibly pursue one maxim in their own life or design practice. His sense of humor and willingness to let us watch him conduct experiments on himself will certainly inspire designers to be bold and more introspective. It may even contribute to a broader discussion outside of design.

o

Favorite This
Q
4

Comment

Comments

SD

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

maybe you see it as the zenith of self-indulgence. but it signifies broader and deeper social and cultural practices and beliefs that are being increasingly challenged. more and more governments, businesses, schools etc.--not to mention individuals and communities--are realizing well-being is not (no longer?) coupled with monetary wealth. ppl are beginning to identify and explore different interpretations of wealth and in the process modify value systems to form preferences for things like self-actualization rather than the value of your home. it's about much more than graphic design.
!Report as spam
sicofit

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

stephen i've been at it for 15 full years now and i've seen plenty of pseudo-stars comming and going, and normal designers like me (that do everyday work and always keep costumers satisfied) being treated like trash. Sagmeister has some rebrandings for millions of euros lately. Then he uses those millions to do a movie about travels? WTF?
!Report as spam
stephe

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Maybe "Sicofit" (psyco-fit?), If you keep it up, someday you will know what it took to get to a level where you can charge millions of dollars for some logos... You don't wake up and kick ass.
!Report as spam
sicofit

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

This is simply making fun of the people that have to work very hard simply to survive. I would be happy too if I too was payed millions for doing weird logos. Why people applaud this? Its showing off at its worst
!Report as spam