Homage Project: Stefen Sagmeister

For the first project we were instructed to pick a developed graphic designer or artist and create a homage piece which displays their most common design concepts and ideas. After researching multiple designers I decided to go with Stefen Sagmeister. He is definitely one of a kind. Every seven years he takes a one year sabbatical to refresh his mind and directional talent and has a lot to show for it. Here's a video about him discussing his sabbaticals and what they've done for him as a designer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuOmTQdFjA These sabbaticals create life lessons which he usually ends up expressing through his art work.

He has done several art pieces that involve using expressive typography. He has also designed multiple CD covers for famous artists like the Rolling Stones and David Byrne. He is most well known for making his designs interactive. Take a look at some of his popular work below:

Below is a wall full of bananas spelling out one of his life lessons: "Self-confidence produces fine results". This was left on the wall until the bananas started to change color...Much like the "A Diamond is Forever" advertisement by De Beers. 

Below is one of his more famous works from which I imitated while making my homage piece.

There's plenty more where that came from, just check out his website or simply 'Google' him. The piece that I made reflects Sagmeister's work by using type to create the art work. Although the typeface wasn't exactly what I wanted, it served its purpose. I used Illustrator to create it from scratch. By using the pathfinder attributes and simple shapes and type, I created a this homage piece. I wanted to make it appear to be chaotic and random, but also keep a level of simplicity.  I learned about balance and technical Illustrator alignment tools during this process.  Let me know what you think!