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 studio za dizajn u Njujorku. Svake sedme godine zatvorim ga na godinu dana kako bih izveo neke male eksperimente, stvari koje je uvek teško postići u godinama tokom kojih radite. Te sedme godine nismo dostupni ni za jednog klijenta. Totalno smo zatvoreni. Očigledno, ovo je divno vreme, puno energije.
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.
Prvobitno sam otvorio studio u Njujorku kako bih spojio svoje dve ljubavi, muziku i dizajn. Kreirali smo spotove i dizajnirali omote diskova za mnoge muzičare koje znate. I za mnogo više onih za koje nikad niste čuli. I tako sam zaključio, da, kao i sa mnogim drugim stvarima u životu koje zapravo volim, mogu da se naviknem. I onda, vremenom, mi postanu dosadne. I sigurno u našem slučaju, posao je postao jednolilčan. Vidite ovde stakleno oko usečeno u knjigu. Prilično slična ideja, takođe, parfem usečen u knjigu. Zato sam odlučio da zatvorim studio 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.
Takođe je poznato da prvih 25 godina života provedemo učeći. Narednih 40 godina su rezervisane za rad I onda, na to dodamo oko 15 godina za penziju. Pomislio sam, možda bi bilo od pomoći da jednostavno skratimo penziju za pet godina i te godine prerasporedimo između godina koje provedemo radeći. (Aplauz) Meni ovo očigledno prija. Ali verovatno je čak važnije da rad koji proizađe iz ovih godina uplovi nazad u kompaniju i, šire gledano u društvo umesto što će doneti 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.
Jedan kolega TED-ovac govorio je pre dve godine, Džonatan Hajdt, definisao je svoj posao kroz tri različita nivoa. Slažem se sa njegovom podelom. Mogu da posmatram svoj rad kao posao, radim to za novac. Četvrtkom se već radujem vikendu. I verovatno će mi, radi ravnoteže, trebati hobi. Više sam angažovan što se tiče karijere. Ali takođe, postoje periodi kada se pitam da li se sav težak rad isplati. Što se tiče mog poziva, verovatno bih isto to radio i bez finansijske nadoknade.
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 religiozan, ali tražio sam prirodu. Proveo sam svoju prvu slobodnu godinu u Njujorku. Tražio nešto drugačije druge godine. Evropa i SAD mi nisu delovali primamljivo jer sam ih poznavao suviše dobro. Izbor je pao na Aziju. Najlepši predeli koje sam video u Aziji bili su Šri Lanka i Bali. U Šri Lanki je i dalje trajao građanski rat, pa je odluka pala na Bali. To je divno društvo, zanatski orijentisano.
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 septembra 2008. i gotovo momentalno počeo da radim. Divna inspiracija dolazi iz samog okruženja. Ipak, prvo što mi je zatrebalo bilo je napraviti štampanje otporno na komarce jer ih je bilo definitivno u ogromnim količinama. Onda mi je trebao neki način da dođem do svoje kuće koju su okruživali divlji psi koji su me napadali tokom jutarnjih šetnji. Tako smo kreirali seriju od 99 portreta na majicama. Svi psi na jednoj majici. Kao mala odmazda sa lagano pretećom porukom (Smeh) na leđima. (Smeh)
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)
Malo pre nego što sam napustio Njujork odlučio sam da renoviram studio. I prepustim sav taj rad drugima. Tako da ne moram da radim ništa. Tražio sam nameštaj. Ali ispostavilo se da nameštaj koji mi se zaista dopadao nisam mogao da priuštim. A onaj koji sam mogao da kupim, nije mi se dopadao. Tako da su jedne od stvari koje smo tražili na Baliju bile nameštaj. Ovaj komad sa divljim psima nije još potpuno završen. I mislim da, dok je ova lampa stigla, (Smeh) konačno sam sklopio primirje sa psima. (Smeh)
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.
Onda, sto za kafu. Takođe sam napravio sto za kafu. Zove se: Budi ovde sad. U njemu su 330 kompasa. I napravili smo i šoljice za espreso kafu koje u sebi skrivaju magnet, koji izludi kompase, uvek pokazujući na njih. Zatim ova vrlo pričljiva stolica. Počeo sam po prvi put u životu da meditiram, na Baliju. U isto vreme, vrlo sam svestan koliko je dosadno slušati o sreći drugih ljudi. Tako da se neću upuštati 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 TED-ovca Denija Gilberta, čiju knjigu sam u stvari nabavio preko TED kluba knjige. Mislim da je čitanje potrajalo četiri godine i konačno sam je pročitao tokom slobodne godine. I bilo mi je drago da vidim da ju je u stvari napisao takođe dok je imao slobodnu godinu. Pokazaću vam nekoliko ljudi kojima se slobodna godina isplatila.
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 Feran Adria. Mnogi misle da je on trenutno najbolji kuvar na svetu sa svojim restoranom, "elBulji", severno od Barselone. Restoran je otvoren sedam meseci svake godine. Onda ga zatvara na pet meseci kako bi eksperimentisao zajedno sa svojim zaposlienima. Poslednja statistika je prilično impresivna. Tokom godine on ugosti 8.000 ljudi. I dobije 2.2 miliona zahteva za rezervaciju.
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 i onda slobodna godina, to je 12,5 odsto mog vremena. I ako pogledam kompanije koje su zapravo uspešnije od mene, 3M, koji od 1930-ih daje svim svojim inženjerima 15 odsto vremena da potroše na šta god hoće. I ima dobrih rezultata. "Skoč" samolepljive trake su proizišle iz ovog programa kao i Art Fraj, koji je osmislio samolepljive blokčiće za 3M tokom svog slobodnog vremena. Gugl, naravno, veoma slavno dopušta 20 odsto svojim softver inženjerima da se posvete svojim ličnim projektima.
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.
Da li je neko odavde ikad uzeo slobodnu godinu? To je otprilike pet odsto.. Ne znam da li je vaš sused podigao ruku. Pričajte sa njima da li je bilo uspešno ili ne. Otkrio sam da je da bih saznao šta će mi se sviđati u budućnosti, najbolje da pričam sa ljudima koji su to zapravo uradili, nego da sam to zamišljam.
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 mi je palo napamet da to uradim proces je tekao tako što sam doneo odluku i upisao je u svoj dnevni planer. I onda sam svima okolo rekao šta sam odlučio tako da ne bude šanse da se uplašim i odustanem kasnije. (Smeh)
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)
Na početku, prva slobodna godina je bila katastrofalna. Mislio sam da ne treba ništa da planiram, da će taj vremenski vakuum biti divan i primamljiv za prikupljanje ideja. Nije bio. Bez plana, reagovao sam samo na male zahteve, ne na poslovne zahteve na sve njih sam odgovorio sa ne, osim na druge male zahteve. Poput slanja imejla japanskom dizajn magazinu i slične stvari. Tako sam postao sopstveni stažista. (Smeh)
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.
I veoma brzo sam napravio listu stvari koje me interesuju, postavio ih u hijerarhiju, podelio ih u vremenske periode i onda napravio plan, sličan onima u osnovnoj školi. Šta ovde imamo? Ponedeljak, osam do devet: pisanje. Devet do deset: razmišljanje o budućnosti. Nije bilo baš uspešno. I tako dalje, i tako dalje. I onda je zapravo to počelo da pozitivno utiče na mene. Šta je proizašlo iz svega? Opet sam se približio dizajnu. Bilo je zabavno. Finansijski, dugoročno gledano, bilo je uspešno. Kako je kvalitet poboljšan, mogli smo da tražimo i više cene.
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.
A, verovatno najznačajnije, skoro sve što smo uradili za sedam godina nakon prve pauze proizašlo je iz onoga što smo osmislili tokom te jedne godine. Pokazaću vam nekoliko projekata koji su se iznedrili u toku ovih sedam godina nakon godinu dana pauze. Jedan od aspekata mišljenja u kom sam učestvovao je je da je jednolikost neverovatno precenjena. Cela ta ideja da sve mora da bude potpuno jednako radi za kompanije u tek nekoliko oblasti, i ni za kog drugog.
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.
Zatraženo nam je da dizajniramo identitet za "Kuću muzike" muzički centar koji je projektovao Rem Kulhas u Portu, u Portugalu. I iako sam želeo da osmislim identitet koji se ne oslanja na arhitekturu, nisam uspeo. Uglavnom jer sam spoznao na prezentaciji Rem Kulhasa u Portu, koncentracije različitih slojeva značenja. To sam razumeo nakon prevođenja iz arhitektonskog na normalni engleski, kao logo-marketing. Shvatio sam da je zgrada 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.
I onda je postalo lako. Stavili smo na nju masku, pogledali duboko u nju, ispitali je sa svih strana, zapada, severa, juga, istoka, sa vrha i dna. Obojili ih na veoma jedinstven način uz pomoć softvera koji je napisao moj prijatelj, "Logo generator Kuće Muzike". Ovo je povezano sa skenerom. Stavimo bilo koju sliku, na primer sliku Betovena. I softver vam, u sekundi, da Betoven-logo Kuće Muzike. Što, kada treba da dizajnirate poster za Betovena, bude veoma praktično, jer su logo i poster u stvari 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.
Tako da će se uvek konceptualno uklapati. Ako je na programu Zapina muzika, i ona će imati sopstveni logo. Ili Filip Glas, Lu Rid ili Kemikal Bradrs; ko god će svirati tamo, imaće sopstveni logo. Logo Kuće Muzike. Isto je i sa predsednikom ili muzičkim direktorom čiji portreti Kuće muzike se nalaze na njihovim vizit kartama. U zgradi živi čitav jedan orkestar. Njihova oznaka nije upečatljiva. Kamion kojim idu na turneju. Ili, postoji manji, moderni orkestar, 12 ljudi koji stvaraju sopstveni 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. Kao na ovom posteru Done Toni, ili Šopena, Mocarta, ili La Mont Janga. Možete uzeti oblik i od njega izraditi reklamu. Možete ga "zasaditi" ispod kože. Možete napravi plakat za porodično okupljanje ispred kuće ili za rejv žurku u podrumu kuće ili nedeljni 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.
Drugo shvatanje. Do tad sam uglavnom koristio za promociju jezik dizajna, što je za mene bilo u redu. S jedne strane nemam ništa protiv prodaje. Oba moja roditelja su bili prodavci. Ali počeo sam da osećam da previše vremena učim samo taj jezik, i zašto samo njime vršim promociju? Mora da postoji još nešto. I čitave serije radova su proizašle iz ovoga. Neke ste možda već videli. Neke sam već pokazao na pređašnjim TED konferencijama pod naslovom "Stvari koje sam do sad naučio u svom životu". Sada ću pokazati samo dve.
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 čitav zid od banana različite zrelosti, na dan otvaranja ove galerije u Njujorku. Kaže: "Samopouzdanje donosi dobre rezultate." Ovo je posle nedelju dana. Posle dve nedelje, tri, četiri, pet nedelja. I vidite da se samopouzdanje ponovo pojavljuje, ali ne baš. Ovo su neke fotografije koje su mi posetioci poslali. (Smeh)
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."
Onda u Amsterdamu dobili smo trg da nešto na njemu napravimo. Koristili smo kamene ploče kao rešetke za naš mali komad. Nabavili smo 250 hiljada novčića iz centralne banke, različitog nivoa potamljenosti. Imali smo potpuno nove, sjajne, srednjeg sjaja, veoma stare i tamne. I uz pomoć 100 volontera, preko nedelje smo kreirali ovu prilično cvetnu tipografiju koja kaže: "Opsesije čine moj život lošijim, a moj rad boljim."
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 naravno bila da napravimo ovo toliko dragocenim da se publika zapita, "Da li da uzmem što više novca mogu? Ili da ostavim ovo delo netaknuto kao što je sada?" Dok smo ovo gradili tokom cele nedelje, sa 100 volontera, mnogo ljudi iz komšiluka je okružilo trg približilo se i svidelo im se ono što su videli Kad je konačno bilo gotovo, prve noći došao je momak sa velikom najlon kesom i pokupio sve što je mogao da ponese, jedan komšija je pozvao 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)
I amsterdamska policija u celoj svojoj mudrosti, je došla, videla i htela da zaštiti umetničko delo. Tako su sve počistili i stavili u nadležnost odneli ih u sedište policije. (Smeh) Mislim da ovde vidite kako čiste. Ovo je policija, sve su počistili. Posle osam sati ovo je sve što je ostalo od cele stvari (Smeh)
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.
Radimo i na započinjanju većeg projekta na Baliju. Radi se o filmu o sreći. Ovde smo upitali neke lokalne svinje da naprave naslov za nas. Nisu se baš pokazale, Pa smo upitali gusku da to uradi, i nadali se da će nekako uspeti, da obavi to elegantnije i lepše. Mislim da je preterala. Previše je ukrasno. Moj studio je veoma blizu šume sa majmunima. A, majmuni u toj šumi su izgledali baš srećno. Pa smo ih pitali da to urade za nas. Uradili su dobar posao, ali je bilo nekoliko problema u čitljivosti. Dakle, šta god da ne uradiš sam nije baš najbolje urađeno.
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.
To je film na kom ćemo raditi naredne dve godine. Dakle, biće to neko vreme. Naravno da možete misliti praviti film o sreći nije baš vredno truda, ali onda možete uvek videti ovog momka.
Video: (Laughter) And I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive.
Video: (Smeh) Srećan sam što sam živ. Srećan sam što sam živ. Srećan sam što sam živ.
Stefan Sagmeister: Thank you. (Applause)
Štefan Zagmajster: Hvala vam. (Aplauz)