We live in such carefully curated times that it’s rare to hear a story of something that has gone really, really, irretrievably wrong. Closing out the D&AD Festival, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister treated the audience to precisely that.
Since founding his first studio in 1991, Sagmeister has designed for the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. He’s won Grammys, published bestselling books, and his exhibitions have been mounted in museums around the world. And yet, it was his encounter with Aerosmith in the 1990s that left him “A paper cut away from mental breakdown.” The story Sagmeister shared may seem unrelatable — as well as for the rock band. It involves being sued by a radical Hindu sect, edited by Walmart, and a bill for $500,000 — but it contains universal lessons.
The Aerosmith project started well. Sagmeister was brought in to design the cover for the band’s1996 album, Nine Lives, which was to be released as a CD. Describing lead singer Steve Tyler as “Not merely a person, more of a concept,” Sagmeister worked closely and productively with the band. After many trials and revisions, he developed a design involving a die-cut cat and a 24-page booklet, which everyone loved. Aerosmith felt the spirit of the band and the album concept was being brought to life – the designs sailed through approvals. Everything was perfect.
Then it all changed following a cascade of conflicts. Between the band, its manager, the label, and even amongst themselves. If that wasn’t bad enough, a new player, who made a seemingly arbitrary but critical decision to kill the design because of a 16-cent overage on every booklet printed, came in.
This was the beginning of a torturous process of trying to find a solution that would never live up to the original or please a group of decision-makers who were not in harmony. Sagmeister describes it as designing for the “absence of hatred.” It will come as no surprise to learn that things deteriorated from there. He explained that his primary motivation eventually was that, ”There will come a day, when I will walk into Tower Records, put $14.95 on the counters and say, “Give me the record.”
A solution was found, the album went on sale, and while Sagmeister was able to walk into Tower Records and buy the CD, the story wasn’t over. This is where the lawsuits, the radical Hindu sect, Walmart, and that $500,000 bill join the story.
No Festival talk is complete without takeaways, so what was Sagmeister’s learning? While there’s little he could have done to prepare for the Aerosmith experience, since then, he has not worked on a project where the person briefing doesn’t also make the decisions. His next project was with solo artist David Byrne.
Following this fascinating, hilarious, and horrifying story, Sagmeister sat down for a brief chat with D&AD President Lisa Smith. AI is not the death of creativity, he argued. He compared our current situation with AI to that of painters in 1880. The arrival of the camera back was not the death of painting and even led to new areas for creative experimentation. The same occurred when digital tools for designers arrived. We may be in a period of AI slop and adjustment, but we cannot predict what will come.
Sagmeister closed his commercial design studio in 2019 to focus on communication design centered on optimism. His goal is to provide a “bite of the carrot” using creativity and positive reinforcement to balance out the giant stick of negativity we experience from the daily news cycle.
This article has been edited for style and clarity by the adobo editorial team. All efforts have been made to preserve the writer’s original intent.
About the Writer
Maeve O’Sullivan is the founder of PR & marketing consultancy MOScomms. She has spent 20 years working with brands and agencies across the creative industries, including D&AD and WPP.
