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Five Emotions I Must Feel to Create

Five Emotions I Must Feel to Create-1
Stefan Sagmeister photographed in Hong Kong 2011

Stefan Sagmeister is no stranger to the cycle of transformation.

In fact, change is something he wholeheartedly embraces. Be it his ability to switch between projects and disciplines at the drop of a hat or physically relocating his life - Sagmeister does whatever he feels like. 
As a designer, he's the leader of the pack. A cunning, confident changemaker with an almost instinctual ability to push boundaries and claim new territory with relative ease. There's also something slightly sinister about him... and we love it. 
Here, Stefan takes us inside that brilliant brain, revealing five emotions he must feel to create. 
Five Emotions I Must Feel to Create-2
Making the Happy Movie
1   Freshness of Spirit
I want to start thinking about a project early in the morning, as thinking might be the most difficult thing I’ll do all day and so I’d love to start with the hard stuff and then work myself down to easy ways
2   Freedom of Thinking
I want to have all the necessary limitations laid out clearly - I love them. But within that space I’d like no restrictions
3a  Dread and Pain
There will be periods of suffering and self-doubt. I’m going to be stuck. I’m going to suck. Very old ideas will come to mind. If its easy, its likely no good
3b Repeat
3c Repeat
4   Recognition of a path
I rarely have a big, single Eureka moment. But the way gets less rocky with fewer stones to bump my toes bloody. 
5   Willingness to hang in there for the execution
Tenacity, interrupted by infrequent discoveries of a possibility to push the project.
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Five Emotions I Must Feel to Create-4
Stefan Sagmeister works from NYC with his business partner Jessica Walsh at Sagmeister & Walsh.

Recently in: SYDNEY / AUCKLAND / WELLINGTON / ABU DHABI / SINGAPORE / PORTO / TOKYO / LOS ANGELES / NEW YORK / LONDON / STOCKHOLM