Stefan Sagmeister is a NYC-based designer whose work has done its fair share of moving and shocking people. Stefan took some time out recently to answer a few questions on the process that went into creating his new book Made You Look which is published by Booth-Clibborn Editions and can be found on Amazon.com and offline at most bookstores.

What was the process you went through to choose what went into your book?

The publisher gave us a lot of freedom, so we really could do any type of book we wanted. I quickly decided on a traditional show/tell format, mainly because there has not been one in a while (the trend in design going to experimental design monographs) and I felt there were stories to tell on some of our projects. I also wanted to include some of the bad projects (I always love to see those from other studios).

We included every piece of info we could think of. Peter Hall wrote a very detailed text. I included little handwritten excerpts from my diary, comments from our clients, even the amount of hours it took to design each project and how much we got paid. There is also a rating system from 1-5, telling the reader what we actually think of each end result.

Ideally, the book should work on a number of levels: when you just check it out for 10 seconds at the book store, when you look at it at a friends place for 10 minutes, when you check it in a library for 10 hours, or even, and this is BY FAR my favorite level, when you actually buy it and spent 10 days reading the whole sucker.

Was there ever a point during the gathering of materials, that you thought “this might not work?”

Well, there is always a lot of self-doubt, in this case maybe less so because while doing the book I also lectured quite a bit, tried some of the material out and got feedback.

What did it feel like when you had the first copy of the book in your hands?

Relief. Joy. Satisfaction of having a good part of my life summarized into one little package.

Is there anything you would have done differently with hindsight?

Probably add some breathing space, some large format photos. In our effort to make it dense I might have overdone it. Should have insisted on unbreakable material for the slipcase. My fuck-up.

Has it helped you to see what you have accomplished in your career and what directions you can explore now?

I don’t know yet. There is always a danger that these monographs invite resting on very old laurels. We’ll open the studio on October 1st for clients again (having done a year of happy experiments). I’ll see.

What has been the most inspiring thing to happen from the creation of your book?

A book gives a designer the rare opportunity to engage with an audience for a lengthy period of time (unlike say, an ad or a poster). I met a student who mentioned she read the entire thing in one go and then had to simply work. Having felt exactly like that after reading: Forget all the Rules about Graphic Design including the ones in this Book by Bob Gill 15 years ago — when I was a student — this made me very happy.

If you could leave behind one thing for people to remember, what would it be?

A great question and I really don’t know the answer. The closest I could come: If the Move Our Money campaign turns out to be successful (cut 15% of the Pentagon budget and move it over to health care and education) this would be something I’d be extremely happy about.

Made You Look

interview by: Jarrett Kertesz

Joshua Distler is a San Francisco based designer. He recently launched designobject as an online place where designers could show and sell their work. He also designs fonts which can be found on his website Shiftype. In this interview he talks about designobject, an e-commerce site that features innovative and contemporary design objects, and what it took to get things running. He also offers some great advice for those who are thinking of doing this on their own.

What was your inspiration for creating this site?

Originally, the inspiration for the site came from the objects. There were a number of occasions where either myself or my colleagues had ideas for interesting objects that we wanted to produce but couldn’t, primarily because of the obstacles around distribution. When I looked around, I didn’t see a lot of other sites that offered smart commerce features in combination with a well-designed front end. More than that, the sites that I did find usually offered, hence supported, the design mega-brands.

For me, the quality of the work is always more important than the brand. It seemed like a good opportunity and an excellent challenge to take the knowledge that I gained from my e-commerce type site Shift (shiftype.com) and apply it on a larger scale. But, ultimately, the goal was to provide a distribution method for great independent objects and content and by doing so, to provide a motivation for those with ideas to produce.

Was it your intent to leave commercial design work behind and focus on designobject?

I had intended to split my time equally between my commercial design work and designobject. And, early in the process, this had worked well. But, as the site began to gel I was working 14 hour days just to keep all the plates spinning. I decided that it would be better for the project to focus my design energy solely on designobject until the design and coding phase of the site was completed and we were launched.

What was the reaction from your friends and family when you told them you were going to do this?

Really positive, much of the funding came from family and friends — donations of time and money. Nearly everyone thought it was an idea worth pursuing. There were a few who were concerned that it wouldn’t make us millions, which was never the goal anyhow.

What was more difficult, financing the site or making sure the back end worked?

Designobject is 100% self-financed; funds for development were scrapped together from savings, family, and the donated time of many of the people involved. Last year, when the back end coding was being done, it would have been very easy to get VC or angel funding. Despite that fact, I felt that designobjects vision might easily be corrupted by investors looking to make a quick return. So, the financing, although not easy, was fixed early on in the game. It was because of the financing that it was very difficult to get things exactly how we wanted them on the back end. We had an extremely tight budget to work with and we were striving to provide functionality that even large e-commerce sites lacked.

What hurdles did you encounter pre-launch? Were there any memorable breakthroughs?

Because our budget was so tight, getting things working exactly how we wanted them to work was very difficult. We had very specific functionality and design standards to satisfy. Every bit of code for the site was written from the ground up by us or to our specs.

An example: many shopping sites only remove items from inventory after the customer has paid. This creates problems because an item may be in stock during checkout but then out of stock as the customer goes to pay. It’s done because it keeps more objects in stock until the last possible moment. We wanted to make sure that object inventory was tracked correctly and that objects were not promised if they were not available. This was one of the many features that was critical to the site functioning correctly. It’s now integrated and working; many times we are able to ship before the promise date; we never have to ship after.

After over a year of development we’d gotten all of the code installed and the database populated for launch; we learned a hell of a lot along the way, and were fortunate to have the help of talented coders like Jonathan Snyder of Method. But, it was finally seeing everything up and running at beta level that felt like the biggest breakthrough. This was the moment when we knew that everything would work and that everyones efforts had paid off.

Will designobject encompass other, off-line projects (i.e. design studio, off-line publishing, exhibition space, etc.)?

We are hoping to expand designobject off-line as it continues to grow online; we’ve been kicking around a number of ideas. I think it’s important to give people hands-on time with the objects when it becomes feasible. We’re considering a traveling exhibition or a retail space. We also want to have more direct involvement with the design community and we’ll be doing this through competitions, sponsorships, and events.

Are any of the pieces sold on designobject yours?

None of the objects sold on the site are mine — not yet. The goal was to build a framework to present the objects, before I focused design time on the objects themselves. Now that the site is launched, I am going to be working on a couple of ideas, and Stephanie Snyder, our writer/editor (an installation artist by profession), has some promising concepts which I’m looking forward to.

Are there any other projects you are working on?

Yes. Since the launch of the site, my role as creative director has calmed down a bit and I’ve recently been able to do some design consulting for Apple. I’ve also been able to resume development on some typefaces, which I’ve been working on for Shift.

Is there any advice you would give to someone thinking of entering the online retailing world?

That’s a tough one.

As to logistics, it’s really important to find a programmer who you can trust and who will make the extra effort to see that your vision works in code. Extra work and good code during development will mean much much less work when things are up and running.

For me the most important aspect was the creative one and the idea of making great products accessible. The retail component was a method to make that happen and way to sustain it. So, I would say that the most important thing is to do it because you are passionate about the idea and let the money thing be secondary.