I run a design studio in New York. Every seven years, I close it for one year to pursue some little experiments, things that are always difficult to accomplish during the regular working year. In that year, we are not available for any of our clients. We are totally closed. And as you can imagine, it is a lovely and very energetic time.
Vodim dizajnerski studio u New Yorku. Svakih sedam godina zatvaram ga na godinu dana kako bih bio u potrazi za nekim malim eksperimentima, stvarima koje je uvijek teško postići tijekom redovne radne godine. U to doba nismo dostupni našim klijentima. Potpuno smo zatvoreni. I kako možete i zamisliti, to je divno i energično vrijeme.
I originally had opened the studio in New York to combine my two loves, music and design. And we created videos and packaging for many musicians that you know, and for even more that you've never heard of. As I realized, just like with many many things in my life that I actually love, I adapt to it. And I get, over time, bored by them. And for sure, in our case, our work started to look the same. You see here a glass eye in a die cut of a book. Quite the similar idea, then, a perfume packaged in a book, in a die cut. So I decided to close it down for one year.
U samim početcima otvorio sam studio u New Yorku s namjerom da spojim moje dvije ljubavi, glazbu i dizajn. Stvorili smo reklame za mnoge glazbenike koje poznajete. A još više njih za one za koje nikada niste čuli. Shvatio sam da se baš kao i mnogim stvarima u životu koje volim, prilagođavam i ovome. I s vremenom mi postane dosadno. Zasigurno i u našem slučaju, posao nam je počeo izgledati jednolično. Ovdje vidite stakleno oko smješteno u usjek knjige. Zatim, vrlo slična ideja, parfem umotan u knjigu, u usjek knjige. Stoga sam odlučio zatvoriti na godinu dana.
Also is the knowledge that right now we spend about in the first 25 years of our lives learning, then there is another 40 years that's really reserved for working. And then tacked on at the end of it are about 15 years for retirement. And I thought it might be helpful to basically cut off five of those retirement years and intersperse them in between those working years. (Applause) That's clearly enjoyable for myself. But probably even more important is that the work that comes out of these years flows back into the company and into society at large, rather than just benefiting a grandchild or two.
Znamo da prvih 25 godina života provedemo učeći. Zatim slijedi još 40 godina koje su rezervirane za rad. A zatim pričvršćeno na kraju, otprilike 15 godina namijenjenih mirovini. I mislio sam da bi moglo biti od pomoći uzeti pet umirovljeničkih godina i razmjestiti ih između ovih radnih godina. (Pljesak) To mi je očito ugodno. A ono što je vjerojatno važnije jest da sve te godine rada odu na nekakvo poduzeće i društvo prije nego što učine dobro nečijim unucima.
There is a fellow TEDster who spoke two years ago, Jonathan Haidt, who defined his work into three different levels. And they rang very true for me. I can see my work as a job. I do it for money. I likely already look forward to the weekend on Thursdays. And I probably will need a hobby as a leveling mechanism. In a career I'm definitely more engaged. But at the same time, there will be periods when I think is all that really hard work really worth my while? While in the third one, in the calling, very much likely I would do it also if I wouldn't be financially compensated for it.
Kolega TED-ovac koji je govorio prije dvije godine, Jonathan Haidt, definirao je svoj posao unutar tri različite razine. I to razine koje i meni odgovaraju. Vidim svoj rad kao običan posao. Posao koji radim zbog novca. Četvrtkom se već vjerojatno veselim vikendu. I vjerojatno ću trebati nekakvu zanimaciju kao mehanizam rangiranja. Više sam angažiran što se tiče karijere. Ali u isto vrijeme, doći će određeni periodi kada ću se zapitati isplati li se sav taj teški rad? A što se tiče mog poziva, vjerojatno bih ga slijedio čak i kada ne bih bio plaćen za njega.
I am not a religious person myself, but I did look for nature. I had spent my first sabbatical in New York City. Looked for something different for the second one. Europe and the U.S. didn't really feel enticing because I knew them too well. So Asia it was. The most beautiful landscapes I had seen in Asia were Sri Lanka and Bali. Sri Lanka still had the civil war going on, so Bali it was. It's a wonderful, very craft-oriented society.
Nisam religiozna osoba, ali tragao sam za prirodom. Prvu slobodnu godinu proveo sam u New Yorku. Drugi put, tražio sam nešto drukčije. Europa i SAD nisu se činile primamljive jer ih predobro poznajem. Stoga je to bila Azija. Najljepši krajolici koje sam vidio u Aziji bili su Šri Lanka i Bali. Budući da je u Šri Lanci još uvijek trajao rat, otišao sam na Bali. Prekrasno društvo vrlo usmjereno obrtu.
I arrived there in September 2008, and pretty much started to work right away. There is wonderful inspiration coming from the area itself. However the first thing that I needed was mosquito repellent typography because they were definitely around heavily. And then I needed some sort of way to be able to get back to all the wild dogs that surround my house, and attacked me during my morning walks. So we created this series of 99 portraits on tee shirts. Every single dog on one tee shirt. As a little retaliation with a just ever so slightly menacing message (Laughter) on the back of the shirt. (Laughter)
Stigao sam tamo u rujnu 2008., i praktički odmah počeo raditi. Ta okolina bila je inspirirajuća. Ali prvo što mi je tamo trebalo, bilo je napraviti reklamu za repelente protiv komaraca jer ih je bilo mnogo. I morao sam pronaći način kako doći do svoje kuće koja je bila okružena divljim psima koji su me znali napasti tijekom mojih jutarnjih šetnji. Stoga smo napravili seriju od 99 portreta na majicama. Po jedan pas na svakoj majici. Poput male odmazde s lagano prijetećom porukom (Smijeh) na stražnjoj strani majice. (Smijeh)
Just before I left New York I decided I could actually renovate my studio. And then just leave it all to them. And I don't have to do anything. So I looked for furniture. And it turned out that all the furniture that I really liked, I couldn't afford. And all the stuff I could afford, I didn't like. So one of the things that we pursued in Bali was pieces of furniture. This one, of course, still works with the wild dogs. It's not quite finished yet. And I think by the time this lamp came about, (Laughter) I had finally made peace with those dogs. (Laughter)
Prije nego sam napustio New York, odlučio sam da bih mogao renovirati svoj studio. I prepustiti sav taj rad drugima. Tako da ja ne moram ništa raditi. I tako sam krenuo u potragu za namještajem. I ispalo je da si nisam mogao priuštiti sav namještaj koji mi se stvarno sviđao, a sve što sam si mogao priuštiti nije mi se sviđalo. Stoga, jedna od stvari za kojom smo tragali na Baliju bili su komadi namještaja. Ovaj komad s divljim psima nije još u potpunosti završen. I mislim da ću se sprijateljiti s onim psima dok ova svjetiljka bude završena. (Smijeh) Napokon sam napravio rad sa tim psima. (Smijeh)
Then there is a coffee table. I also did a coffee table. It's called Be Here Now. It includes 330 compasses. And we had custom espresso cups made that hide a magnet inside, and make those compasses go crazy, always centering on them. Then this is a fairly talkative, verbose kind of chair. I also started meditating for the first time in my life in Bali. And at the same time, I'm extremely aware how boring it is to hear about other people's happinesses. So I will not really go too far into it.
Treći komad je stol za kavu. I njega sam napravio. Zove se Budi Ovdje Sada. Na njemu se nalazi 330 kompasa. Uzimali smo obične šalice za kavu u koje smo sakrili magnete kako bi kompasi poludjeli, uvijek pokazujući na njih. Zatim ova stolica, vrlo pričljiva. Počeo sam meditirati na Baliju po prvi puta u životu. Istovremeno, svjestan sam koliko je dosadno slušati o tuđoj poslovnoj sreći. Stoga, neću ulaziti previše u to.
Many of you will know this TEDster, Danny Gilbert, whose book, actually, I got it through the TED book club. I think it took me four years to finally read it, while on sabbatical. And I was pleased to see that he actually wrote the book while he was on sabbatical. And I'll show you a couple of people that did well by pursuing sabbaticals.
Mnogi od vas znaju ovog TED-ovca, Danny-a Gilbert-a čiju sam knjigu zapravo i nabavio preko TED kluba prijatelja knjiga. Mislim da mi je trebalo četiri godine da ju konačno pročitam, i to tijekom godišnjeg. Bilo mi je drago što je on zapravo svoju knjigu napisao dok je bio na godišnjem. I pokazat ću vam nekoliko osoba koje su učinile dobro upražnjavajući odmore.
This is Ferran Adria. Many people think he is right now the best chef in the world with his restaurant north of Barcelona, El Bulli. His restaurant is open seven months every year. He closes it down for five months to experiment with a full kitchen staff. His latest numbers are fairly impressive. He can seat, throughout the year, he can seat 8,000 people. And he has 2.2 million requests for reservations.
Ovo je Ferran Adria. Mnogi misle da je on trenutno najbolji kuhar na svijetu u svom restoranu na sjeveru Barcelone, elBulli-u. Njegov restoran je otvoren sedam mjeseci svake godine. On ga zatvara na pet mjeseci kako bi eksperimentirao i istraživao zajedno sa svojim kuharskim osobljem. Njegovi posljednji brojevi prilično su impresivni. Tijekom godine njegovim restoranom prođe 8.000 ljudi. I godišnje prima 2.2 milijuna zahtjeva za rezervacije.
If I look at my cycle, seven years, one year sabbatical, it's 12.5 percent of my time. And if I look at companies that are actually more successful than mine, 3M since the 1930s is giving all their engineers 15 percent to pursue whatever they want. There is some good successes. Scotch tape came out of this program, as well as Art Fry developed sticky notes from during his personal time for 3M. Google, of course, very famously gives 20 percent for their software engineers to pursue their own personal projects.
Ako pogledam svoj ciklus, sedam godina, jedna godina odmora, to je 12,5 posto moga vremena. I ako pogledam poduzeća koja su uspješnija od mojeg, poput 3M-a koji od 1930.-ih svojim inženjerima daje 15 posto vremena na vlastitu volju, mogu zaključiti da u tome ima uspjeha. Scotch samoljepljive trake, proizašle su nakon ove akcije, također je i Art Fry osmislio samoljepljive blokiće tijekom svog slobodnog vremena u 3M-u. Naravno i Google svojim inženjerima ostavlja 20 posto vremena za vlastite projekte.
Anybody in here has actually ever conducted a sabbatical? That's about five percent of everybody. So I'm not sure if you saw your neighbor putting their hand up. Talk to them about if it was successful or not. I've found that finding out about what I'm going to like in the future, my very best way is to talk to people who have actually done it much better than myself envisioning it.
Je li netko od vas ikada bio na takvom dopustu? Takvih je otprilike 5 posto. Nisam siguran jeste li vidjeli svog susjeda da je podigao ruku. Pričajte im je li bilo uspješno ili ne. Shvatio sam da je za spoznaju onoga što će mi se u budućnosti sviđati, najbolje pričati s ljudima koji su nešto učinili bolje nego ja sam dok sam si to zamišljao.
When I had the idea of doing one, the process was I made the decision and I put it into my daily planner book. And then I told as many, many people as I possibly could about it so that there was no way that I could chicken out later on. (Laughter)
Kada sam imao određenu ideju, donio bih odluku i upisao je u svoj dnevni raspored. I rekao bih to što većem broju ljudi kako se poslije ne bih ustrtario i odustao. (Smijeh)
In the beginning, on the first sabbatical, it was rather disastrous. I had thought that I should do this without any plan, that this vacuum of time somehow would be wonderful and enticing for idea generation. It was not. I just, without a plan, I just reacted to little requests, not work requests, those I all said no to, but other little requests. Sending mail to Japanese design magazines and things like that. So I became my own intern. (Laughter)
U početku, na mom prvom sabatikalu, bilo je katastrofalno. Mislio sam da bih trebao činiti stvari bez prethodnog planiranja i da bi ovaj vakuum vremena nekako bio predivan i primamljiv za razvijanje ideja. Ali, nije. Stoga, nisam planirao, samo sam reagirao na male zahtjeve, ali ne poslovne zahtjeve, njima sam rekao ne, nego druge male zahtjeve, poput slanja elektroničke pošte japanskim dizajnerskim časopisima i slične stvari. Stoga sam postao sam svoj stažist. (Smijeh)
And I very quickly made a list of the things I was interested in, put them in a hierarchy, divided them into chunks of time and then made a plan, very much like in grade school. What does it say here? Monday, 8 to 9: story writing; 9 to 10: future thinking. Was not very successful. And so on and so forth. And that actually, specifically as a starting point of the first sabbatical, worked really well for me. What came out of it? I really got close to design again. I had fun. Financially, seen over the long term, it was actually successful. Because of the improved quality, we could ask for higher prices.
Vrlo brzo napravio sam popis stvari koje su me zanimale, poredao sam ih po važnosti i rasporedio ih u komade vremena, potom napravio plan, poput rasporeda u osnovnoj školi. Što ovdje piše? Ponedjeljak od osam do devet: pisanje priča. Od devet do deset: razmišljanje o budućnosti. Nije bilo baš uspješno. I tako dalje i tako dalje. I onda je to zapravo počelo pozitivno utjecati na mene. Što je iz toga proizašlo? Opet sam se približio svijetu dizajna. I zabavljao se. Financijski je to dugoročno bilo uspješno. Zbog poboljšane kvalitete mogli smo tražiti i više cijene.
And probably most importantly, basically everything we've done in the seven years following the first sabbatical came out of thinking of that one single year. And I'll show you a couple of projects that came out of the seven years following that sabbatical. One of the strands of thinking I was involved in was that sameness is so incredibly overrated. This whole idea that everything needs to be exactly the same works for a very very few strand of companies, and not for everybody else.
I možda ono najvažnije, praktički sve što smo napravili u sljedećih sedam godina nakon prvog takvog odmora, proizašlo je iz razmišljanja tijekom te jedne godine. Pokazat ću vam nekoliko projekata koji su proizašli u tih sedam godina. Jedan od aspekata mišljenja u koji sam bio uključen bilo je kako je nepromjenjivost precijenjena. Cijela ta ideja da sve mora biti u potpunosti jednako pali samo kod vrlo malog broja poduzeća, ali ne i za sve ostale.
We were asked to design an identity for Casa da Musica, the Rem Koolhaas-built music center in Porto, in Portugal. And even though I desired to do an identity that doesn't use the architecture, I failed at that. And mostly also because I realized out of a Rem Koolhaas presentation to the city of Porto, where he talked about a conglomeration of various layers of meaning. Which I understood after I translated it from architecture speech in to regular English, basically as logo making. And I understood that the building itself was a logo.
Zamolili su nas da dizajniramo nešto što će predstavljati Casa de Musica, glazbeni centar u Portu, u Portugalu kojeg je projektirao Rem Koolhaas. I iako sam imao želju napraviti reklamu koja neće koristiti arihtekturu, nisam uspio. I uglavnom zato što sam shvatio i to iz njegove prezentacije u kojoj je govorio o koncentriranju različitih slojeva značenja. Shvatio sam to tek kada sam ju preveo iz stručnog govora na običan engleski, da se radi o izradi logotipa. I shvatio sam da je građevina sama po sebi logotip.
So then it became quite easy. We put a mask on it, looked at it deep down in the ground, checked it out from all sides, west, north, south, east, top and bottom. Colored them in a very particular way by having a friend of mine write a piece of software, the Casa da Musica Logo Generator. That's connected to a scanner. You put any image in there, like that Beethoven image. And the software, in a second, will give you the Casa da Musica Beethoven logo. Which, when you actually have to design a Beethoven poster, comes in handy, because the visual information of the logo and the actual poster is exactly the same.
Tada je postalo lako. Prvo stavimo masku, pogledamo je dobro sa svih strana, zapada, sjevera, juga, istoka, vrha i dna. Obojimo ih zatim na specifične načine, i to uz pomoć prijatelja i njegovog softvera, Casa de Musica Logo Generator-a koji je povezan sa skenerom. Stavite nekakvu sliku, poput ove Beethoven-ove te vam u sljedećem trenutku softver stvori logotip Casa de Musica Beethoven. I to vam je zapravo vrlo korisno kad trebate dizajnirati plakat koji će predstavljati Beethovena, jer su vizualno logotip i stvarni plakat potpuno isti.
So it will always fit together, conceptually, of course. If Zappa's music is performed, it gets its own logo. Or Philip Glass or Lou Reed or the Chemical Brothers, who all performed there, get their own Casa da Musica logo. It works the same internally with the president or the musical director, whose Casa da Musica portraits wind up on their business cards. There is a full-blown orchestra living inside the building. It has a more transparent identity. The truck they go on tour with. Or there's a smaller contemporary orchestra, 12 people that remixes its own title.
Stoga će oni uvijek konceptualno odgovarati jedno drugome. Ako će biti predstavljena Zappina glazba, onda ona dobije svoj logotip. Ili Phillip Glass ili Lou Reed ili Chemical Brothers, koji su svi tamo i nastupili, svi dobiju svoj vlastiti Casa de Musica logotip. Isto se radi i s predsjednikom ili glazbenim direktorom Casa de Musica-e čiji se portreti nalaze na njihovim podsjetnicama. U zgradi živi čitav jedan orkestar. Njihova oznaka je malo uočljivija. Kamion kojim idu na turneju. Ili, također postoji manji suvremeni orkestar 12 ljudi koji stvaraju svoj vlastiti logotip.
And one of the handy things that came about was that you could take the logo type and create advertising out of it. Like this Donna Toney poster, or Chopin, or Mozart, or La Monte Young. You can take the shape and make typography out of it. You can grow it underneath the skin. You can have a poster for a family event in front of the house, or a rave underneath the house or a weekly program, as well as educational services.
Ono što je korisno je da možete uzeti logotip i od njega napraviti reklamu, poput reklamnog plakata za Donnu Toney ili Chopina, Mozarta ili La Monte Younga. Možete sačuvati oblik i od njega izraditi reklamu. Možete ga gravirati ispod kože. Možete napraviti plakat za obiteljski događaj ispred kuće ili za rave party u podrumu kuće ili pak za tjedni program kao i za obrazovne usluge.
Second insight. So far, until that point I had been mostly involved or used the language of design for promotional purposes, which was fine with me. On one hand I have nothing against selling. My parents are both salespeople. But I did feel that I spent so much time learning this language, why do I only promote with it? There must be something else. And the whole series of work came out of it. Some of you might have seen it. I showed some of it at earlier TEDs before, under the title "Things I've Learned in My Life So Far." I'll just show two now.
Druga predodžba. Dosad, do te točke uglavnom sam koristio jezik dizajna za promociju, što je meni bilo u redu. S jedne strane nemam ništa protiv prodaje. Moji su roditelji bili trgovci. Ali počeo sam osjećati da previše vremena učim samo taj jezik, i zašto samo njime vršim promociju? Mora postojati nešto drugačije. I iz toga je proizišao cijeli niz poslova. Neki od vas možda su ih vidjeli. Neke sam pokazao ranije na TED-u, pod naslovom „Stvari koje sam dosada naučio“. Sada ću pokazati samo dvije.
This is a whole wall of bananas at different ripenesses on the opening day in this gallery in New York. It says, "Self-confidence produces fine results." This is after a week. After two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. And you see the self confidence almost comes back, but not quite. These are some pictures visitors sent to me. (Laughter)
Ovo je zid izgrađen u cijelosti od banana u različitim stupnjevima zrelosti, na dan otvorenja galerije u New Yorku. Na njemu piše, „Samopouzdanje vodi ka dobrim rezultatima.“ Ovo je nakon tjedan dana. Nakon dva tjedna, tri tjedna, četiri tjedna, pet tjedana. I vidite, samopouzdanje se skoro vrati, ali ne u potpunosti. Ovo su neke od slika koje su mi poslali posjetitelji. (Smijeh)
And then the city of Amsterdam gave us a plaza and asked us to do something. We used the stone plates as a grid for our little piece. We got 250,000 coins from the central bank, at different darknesses. So we got brand new ones, shiny ones, medium ones, and very old, dark ones. And with the help of 100 volunteers, over a week, created this fairly floral typography that spelled, "Obsessions make my life worse and my work better."
U Amsterdamu su nas zamolili da napravimo nešto na trgu. Koristili smo kamene ploče kao rešetke za naš mali komad. Iz centralne banke uzeli smo 250 tisuća novčića različitih stupnjeva tamnoće. Bili su to novi, sjajni, srednje stari i vrlo stari, tamni novčići. I uz pomoć 100 volontera u tjedan dana smo na kamenim pločama napravili tipografiju na kojoj je pisalo, „Opsesije mi pogoršavaju život, ali mi poboljšavaju posao“.
And the idea of course was to make the type so precious that as an audience you would be in between, "Should I really take as much money as I can? Or should I leave the piece intact as it is right now?" While we built all this up during that week, with the 100 volunteers, a good number of the neighbors surrounding the plaza got very close to it and quite loved it. So when it was finally done, and in the first night a guy came with big plastic bags and scooped up as many coins as he could possibly carry, one of the neighbors called the police.
Ideja je bila napraviti to tako da bi vas kao publiku dovelo u dilemu. „Da li da uzmem novaca što više mogu? Ili da ostavim to tako kako je?“ Dok smo ovo gradili u tijeku tjedana dana, sa stotinu volontera, veliki broj ljudi približio se trgu i vrlo im se svidjelo ono što su tamo vidjeli. Stoga kada je to napokon bilo gotovo, prve noći, došao je čovjek sa plastičnom vrećicom i pokupio je novaca koliko god je mogao ponijeti, jedan od susjeda pozvao je policiju.
And the Amsterdam police in all their wisdom, came, saw, and they wanted to protect the artwork. And they swept it all up and put it into custody at police headquarters. (Laughter) I think you see, you see them sweeping. You see them sweeping right here. That's the police, getting rid of it all. So after eight hours that's pretty much all that was left of the whole thing. (Laughter)
Amsterdamska policija se u svoj svojoj veličini pojavila, vidjela i pokušala zaštititi umjetnički rad. Pokupili su sve novčiće i odnijeli ih u policijsko sjedište. (Smijeh) Možete ih vidjeti ovdje kako kupe novčiće. To je policija koja se rješava cijelog rada. I nakon osam sati to je u biti sve što je ostalo od cijele stvari. (Smijeh)
We are also working on the start of a bigger project in Bali. It's a movie about happiness. And here we asked some nearby pigs to do the titles for us. They weren't quite slick enough. So we asked the goose to do it again, and hoped she would do somehow, a more elegant or pretty job. And I think she overdid it. Just a bit too ornamental. And my studio is very close to the monkey forest. And the monkeys in that monkey forest looked, actually, fairly happy. So we asked those guys to do it again. They did a fine job, but had a couple of readability problems. So of course whatever you don't really do yourself doesn't really get done properly.
Također započinjemo jedan veći projekt na Baliju. To je film o sreći. Zamolili smo najbliže svinje da nam napišu naslov filma. No nisu baš bile vješte, pa smo zamolili gusku da napravi to isto, nadajući se da će ona nekako to učiti elegantnije. I mislim da je to napravila prelijepo, čak previše kičasto. Moj studio je blizu šume u kojoj se nalaze majmuni, a ti majmuni izgledali su dovoljno sretno pa smo ih zamolili da oni učine to isto. Oni su napravili dobar posao ali postojali su problemi sa čitljivošću. Stoga, zapravo, sve što ne napravite sami ne bude dobro.
That film we'll be working on for the next two years. So it's going to be a while. And of course you might think that doing a film on happiness might not really be worthwhile. Then you can of course always go and see this guy.
Na tome filmu radit ćemo naredne dvije godine. Stoga će to potrajati. I možda mislite da se rad na filmu o sreći neće isplatiti, ali onda uvijek možete otići i pogledati ovog tipa.
Video: (Laughter) And I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive.
Video: (Smijeh) I ja sam sretan što sam živ. Ja sam sretan što sam živ. Ja sam sretan što sam živ.
Stefan Sagmeister: Thank you. (Applause)
Stefan Sagmeister: Hvala vam. (Pljesak)