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How Can I Make People Happier with Design?
Sagmeister believes that good and bad design factors heavily into the happiness of people. This applies especially to those who live in cities, because literally everything around them has been designed. In his TED talk “Happiness by Design” Sagmeister describes that there is a difference between the visualization of happiness and art that evokes happiness.
Sagmeister believes that happiness from design is through creating an experience with his designs. He mentions that some of his favorite works that make him happy are ones where “everyone is a winner”. He provides a meaningful and entertaining experience for the audience, and in return, he receives interesting and often humourous responses.
Interactive exhibit from “The Happy Show”. People interact by riding a bicycle to power neon text.
The Happy Show
In “The Happy Show”, Sagmeister’s 2012 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art with Jessica Walsh, Sagmeister shifted his focus from designing for commercial purposes to designing what he wanted to.
The exhibit offered visitors the experience of “walking into the designer’s mind as he attempts to increase his happiness via meditation, cognitive therapy and mood-altering pharmaceuticals through interactive digital and analog typographic investigations” of Sagmeister’s rules to live by; By doing so, Sagmeister combined his idea of a happy designer with making people happy with the design.
