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Amidst today’s rash of April Fool’s pranks, here’s an alternative: a 2004 TED talk that’s both sober and entertaining. In this talk, designer Stefan Sagmeister discusses the things in life that have made him the happiest. He goes further, trying to understand why these things made him happy, and how design relates to happiness. I really appreciate his story of the combination of a Walkman, motorcycle, and the album Synchronicity combining to form one of his happiest moments.
Viewers of the documentary Helvetica may recognize Sagmeister as the creator of a 1999 poster in which (gross alert) he scratched text into his own skin, then photographed his body. Truly an interesting guy.
One warning — some happiness-related paintings containing nudity are briefly shown in the middle of the talk. If you can handle those, you’ll get to some truly entertaining public art projects afterwards:
Has something made you particularly happy lately? Share in the comments — or just have a nice Tuesday!
My coworker gave me a new Snickers bar…with energy. Just for fun. It made me happy.
posted by Miss Priss on 4-1-2008 at 5:57 pm
it may sound lame, but i run a spoof profile of a singer i like and i made it onto his top 3 or 4 or somethign like that no myspace. lol
left a smile on my face all day.
posted by Sue on 4-2-2008 at 10:24 am
I’ll buy that bad design can make us unhappy. However, the notion that if I wear clothes, drive a car, work in an office, and live in a home where I experience good design–it doesn’t mean I will be happy.
Art can make us feel emotions all across the spectrum. I think that music is a special kind of art, because of the way we engage it.
posted by Nathan Ketsdever on 4-3-2008 at 5:25 am
I’m interning for Stefan this summer. That makes me pretty happy indeed.
posted by Mark on 4-3-2008 at 1:36 pm