Reflection 4

Happiness

Last class we saw two TED videos of Stefan Sagmeister; one about Happiness by Design, and the other about Things I’ve Learned in My Life so far. Both videos mainly focused on himself and his point of view about things he has learned and what makes him happy as a designer. I didn’t know much about Sagmeister, these videos gave me more information about him and his thought process as a graphic designer.

My thoughts on how I feel or what I think of Sagmeister is that to me he seems like a person who puts a lot of thoughts into things in life. In class we pointed out how he is a curious person, I also agree with that. The reason I say he is curious and thinking a lot is because of what he says in both of these videos. For starters, he looks into how to keep doing what he loves to do and how he knows what is good as in worth doing or showing to the public. In one of the videos he points out how he closed his company for a year to use that time off and explore other places which will get him time away from doing the same thing and learn from others and bring that experience to his company.

We know this too by simply looking how he uses his own life experience to create designs. He has a list of things he wrote down from what he remembers about his past and when starting a new project he looks at it and sees what can be used. It is both original and personal, using his own happy moments to create what makes him happy by doing what he loves to do.

One sentence from that list says: “Everything I do comes back to me.” The way I understand this and break it down is how he does something now, let’s say write a happy sentence of what happened that day earlier, and perhaps months or years later that same sentence about what he did comes back and gives him the idea he needs for the project he is working on in the present time. Another reason I say he does a lot of thinking and is careful but not afraid is because at the beginning of Happiness by Design, he explained being on his way to Hong Kong and that if he sees something it will determine what type of experience he will have. Good or bad. In other words he is using things around him to guide him, like creating his own luck.

Although his thoughts and ideas seems to be excellent, I feel by looking at some of the work shown in the video that if not explained by him I personally wouldn’t understand the message, or meaning. However, it would make me look into it which is the goal most designers look for, to make viewers to search more into the work they are seeing, to read and find out what it is going on.

HW Part 2 – What makes me Happy in Graphic Design

It took me some thinking on how to answer this question, more because I might have forgotten why I do this and what keeps me doing it or will keep me doing it for a lifetime. My happiness comes from being successful as well as being appreciated and useful for others I work with or for. It motivates me, it keeps me going. I think most of it has to do with when I was a child every good thing I did got me a reward. Being successful in school got me anything I asked for, helping others got me a learning experience whether it was a good one or a bad one.

But when it comes to design I think it is a combination of everything, for example having a great idea and an excellent team to work with makes me happy, seeing the process of it and then the end results with the pleased reactions from the customer. It feels great to be able to bring to life someone’s vision, it is the power you have as a Graphic Designer. I also like the freedom as in being able to work on my own and work for a company. I find happiness in trying new things, challenging myself to do or create something I thought would be interesting to do.

I enjoy seeing other designer’s work, it inspires me, challenges me, the better they are just proves me that I don’t know all there is to know, I haven’t done enough. Shows me I can do more and that there is more ways of doing all sorts of things and that thought makes me happy. It is like having and never ending story. You get an idea today and another tomorrow, you get too excited you work on new ones but have yet to finish the other and as a graphic designer once you have that going you will be happy, or stressed but happy nonetheless.