I had never heard of Stefan Sagmeister
and I honestly did not know what The Happy Show was about. Luckily when I got to the exhibit, I
quickly figured it out. I was welcomed
with black lettering against bright yellow paint. I thought that it was neat that
Sagmeister chose colors that resembled the characteristics of a happy face. I
also liked that the typography was used in a playful way.
Throughout
the exhibit, I really liked how Sagmeister used research, installations,
and his own thoughts and ideas about happiness. I liked how he shared his ideas
and experiences by writing them on the walls. After the exhibit, I could not
stop thinking about one particular quote that I really liked. “Like everybody
else, I have six basic emotions: sadness, surprise, anger, joy, fear and
disgust. Only one of them is positive, one is neutral and the others are
negative.” Sagmeister uses this quote to
try to explain how he and other people are more attracted to negative experiences
than positive experiences. I had not thought of that theory before and it makes
sense on why people place more emphasis on the negatives. There are more negative
emotions in the world than positive ones.
In
the book Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming, Ellen Lupton discusses
the design process for many graphic designers. Sagmeister had a problem to
solve. His problem was just as your body can be trained; Can your mind be trained
to be happy? Throughout the exhibit, He uses many techniques to try to solve
the problem. Some of his techniques include brainstorming, mapping, and ethnography.
He created detailed drawings and charts, researched different psychologist’s
theory such as Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, and even observed what people
thought of happiness. It was especially interesting that Sagmeister used the
gumball machines and the symbol of happiness installations to poll people’s opinion while at the exhibit.
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