The value of time off

Every seven years, Stefan Sagmeister closes his design studio for a year of focused R&D.

Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. He explains the often overlooked value of time off and shows the innovative projects inspired by his time in Bali.

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• working

Good advice about whining:

Good advice about whining:

Whining should be telling you something. Whining is the white smoke in your tailpipe that lets you know you’re burning mental oil. It means you’re unconsciously devoting cycles to something that you can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t be spending time thinking about. Otherwise, why would it be bothering you, right? You’d be either extricated or done with it.

This jibes nicely with one of Stefan Sagmeister’s Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far:

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

(via bbj)

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Music video for the Softlightes song Heart

Music video for the Softlightes song Heart Made of Sound features handmade typography, Post-It Notes, and stop-motion animation. See also: the opening credits for Napoleon Dynamite, Stefan Sagmeister, and Michel Gondry. (via buzzfeed)

• Michel Gondry
• movies
• music
• Napoleon Dynamite
• softlightes
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• typography
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PingMag interviews designer Stefan Sagmeister about his work.

PingMag interviews designer Stefan Sagmeister about his work.

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• stefansagmeister

AIGA Design Conference podcasts

The AIGA has podcasts and presentation materials up for some of the speakers from the Design Conference (my full coverage here). Several of the main stage speeches are up, as well as backstage interviews with some of the participants. In particular, I would recommend:

• Audio of the main stage presentation and interview with Juan Enriquez.
• Audio of the main stage presentation by Bill Strickland on The Design of Leadership.
• Audio of the main stage presentation by Milton Glaser and Nicholas Negroponte.
• Audio of the main stage presentation by Murray Moss, although I’m not sure how well this one would work if you listened to it without the slides.
• The PDF of Stefan Sagmeister’s presentation doesn’t make too much sense without the audio, but the last 50 or so slides are worth checking out for the design candy.

These aren’t just for designers; they’re perfectly fine for non-designers as well. Here’s the RSS file with all the resources…it should work well with your favorite podcasting software or newsreader. It’s great that the AIGA is making these presentations freely available…you’re getting a lot of the conference for free here. If I remember correctly, not even O’Reilly offers the presentations or podcasts for download after their events like Etech.

Update: Wrong again! IT Conversations has several podcasts from the last Etech conference. (thx tim)

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• billstrickland
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• etech
• Juan Enriquez
• Milton Glaser
• murraymoss
• Nicholas Negroponte
• oreillymedia
• podcasting
• RSS
• stefansagmeister