Stefan Sagmeister: The Happy Film Pitch Book

<p><strong>An artist’s attempts at achieving personal happiness, from meditation to pharmaceuticals</strong></p>Austrian-born, New York-based graphic designer, typographer and artist Stefan Sagmeister (born 1962) often tests and transgresses the boundary between art and design, through his imaginative implementation of typography. <I>The Happy Film Pitch Book</I> both documents Sagmeister’s touring exhibition, <I>The Happy Show</I>, and anticipates his ongoing feature length film, <I>The Happy Film</I>. In both projects, Sagmeister undergoes a series of self-experiments (each experiment lasting three months)--with meditation, cognitive therapy, and mood-altering pharmaceuticals--attempting to improve his personal happiness. I am usually rather bored with definitions,” Sagmeister says. “Happiness, however, is just such a big subject that it might be worth a try to pin it down.” <I>The Happy Show</I>, Sagmeister’s first museum show in the United States, documents his adventures in video, print, infographics, sculpture and interactive installations, most of which were custom-made for this exhibition. Here, Sagmeister offers his own witty and poignant thoughts and reasons for his ten-year exploration of happiness. Throughout the book, Sagmeister’s trademark maxims serve as access points to a larger exploration of happiness, its cultural significance, our constant pursuit of it and its notoriously ephemeral nature.