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.
我在紐約開一家設計工作室 每七年我都關閉一年 讓我進行一些 小實驗 一些通常不容易 在正常的工作年度裡達成的事 關閉的一年, 我們不接受 任何顧客 完全關門 可想而知 那是一段美好又充滿能量的時光
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.
我起先在紐約開了這家工作室 為的是結合我的兩項熱愛: 音樂和設計 我们製作影片和包裝 其中有很多是你們熟悉的音樂家 更多是你們没有聽聞過的音樂家 我發覺 就像生活中很多我喜愛的事物 一旦習以為常 便漸漸變得沉悶 我的工作室也不例外 我們的作品開始變得雷同 看到了吧,書中藏着一顆玻璃眼睛 同樣的設計,用於香水包装 書中藏着一瓶香水 因此我們决定關門一年
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.
我還有另一個原因 目前我們大概 用生命的前二十五年學習 之後的四十年 用於工作 放到最後的 是約十五年的退休生活 我覺得更合理的,可能是 拿走五年的退休時間 把它們穿插在工作的年歲裡 (鼓掌) 我自己顯然因此很開心 但更重要的是 是來自休假那幾年的成果 可以回餽公司 回餽社会 而不僅是貢獻給一兩個孫子孫女
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.
兩年前有一位TED的講者 名叫Jonathan Haidt 他把工作定定義三個不同的層次 教我深深認同 我可以把工作視為一份工,為的是錢 星期四就開始盼望周末 我可能會需要一種業餘愛好,平衡生活 或者,我可以把工作看成我的事業,這樣我會做得更加用心 但有時我又會想 花這麼多精力值得嗎? 第三個層次,是把工作視為一種召喚 很可能我無論如何都會去做 即使没有金錢回報也没關係
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.
我不信教 但我尊重自然 我的第一個修假是在紐約市度過的 我希望第二次會有所不同 歐洲和美國對我吸引力不大 我太熟悉它們了,所以我選擇亞洲 我見到的亞洲最美麗的風景 在斯里蘭卡和巴厘島 斯里蘭卡仍有内戰進行,因此我選擇了巴厘島。 那是一個美好且十分重視手工藝的社会
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)
我2008年9月到達那裡 立即投入工作 那地方本身就充滿靈氣 然而,我首先需要的是 滅蚊劑 因為蚊子太多了 其次我需要某種方法 驅走那些野狗 他们繞着我的房子 當我早上散步時來襲擊我 我們因此做了99條狗的系列T恤 一隻狗一件T恤 作為一個小報復 我加了一條小小的、略帶威協的信息 這麼多狗,這麼少食譜...(笑聲) 在T恤的背後 (笑聲)
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)
在我離開紐約前 我覺得可以装修一下我的工作室 我把工作全交給別人 不再自己操心 只管買家具 結果是 我喜歡的 都買不起 買得起的我又都不喜欢 於是我在巴厘島要做的其中一件事 就是設計家具 設計這個的時後,當然,我們仍跟野狗較量中 還没全部完成 我記得完成这盞灯的時候 (笑聲) 我終於跟狗講和了 (笑聲)
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.
我還設計了這張茶几 命名為 “現在這裡” 它裡面装了330個指南針 我們製做了特別的咖啡杯 裡面藏着磁鐵 它使這些指南針拼命地動 全朝向咖啡杯為中心 之後又設計這個相當健談愛講話的椅子 在巴厘島,我開始平生第一次打坐 不過,同時我又清楚的意識到 聽别人講他們高興的事有多無聊 所以我就不多說了
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.
你們很多人都認識這位TED的講者 Danny Gilbert, 他寫了一本書 我從TED讀書會買了這本書 一直等到四年後 我終於在修長假時讀了這本書 我很高興知道 作者也是在休長假時寫這本書的 我還要介紹給你們幾位 得益於修長假的人
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.
這位是Ferran Adria:公認的 當今世界上最好的厨師 他的餐館位於Barcelona北部的elBull 他的餐館每年只開七個月 另外五個月關門 他用這段時間來做試驗,全體厨房員工也不放假 他的最新數據相當可觀 他的餐館一年可以容納 8,000 人 却收到220萬個預定
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.
看看我的周期,開七年,休一年 是我百分之12.5的時間 看看比我更成功的公司 3M公司,自20世紀30年代起 讓所有的工程師 花百分之十五工作時間做他們自己想做的事 有些很成功的例子 思高牌膠帶就是這個公司政策下的產物 還有Art Fry 研制的 Post-It,也是他利用私人時間為3M發明的 Google 眾人皆知 給他們的軟體工程師百分之二十的時間 去做他們自己想做的項目
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.
聽眾裡有没有人嘗試修過長假呢? 大概百分之五吧 坐你身邊的人舉手了嗎? 請和他們聊聊, 看他們的休假是否成功 我發現 探討我未來想做的事 最佳的辦法是 與做過的人談談 那比自己空想來的更有效
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)
當我想到一個好主意時 我便把决定寫在日記本裡 然後我告訴很多很多的人,越多越好 好讓我日後不會輕易地知難而退 (笑聲)
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)
我的第一個休假初期 事情進展一點也不順利 我以為不用計畫 空閒本身 就很好 能夠創新。但我錯了 没有計畫,我會被動去應付 瑣碎小事,我不是指工作上的事情 那些我全拒絕了,我指的是其他瑣事 比如說給日本設計雜誌寫信 就是說,我成了自己手下的實習生 (笑聲)
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.
很快 我把自己感興趣的事情列了個清單 把它們分門別類,分給大塊的時間 然後做個計畫,就像在小學校做的一樣 計畫有什麼呢? 星期一8至9點:寫小說 9至10點,預想未來 那不是很成功。等等,等等。 而實際上,作為第一次休假的開始 這些安排很適合我 結果呢 我又重新愛上設計了 我自得其樂 從長遠經濟角度看,我的第一個長假是成功的 由於質量提高,我們可以設更高的價格
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.
或許最重要的是 基本上 在下七年我們的設計 意念均源自我們休假的那一年 請你看看以下幾項作品 都是那個長假之後七年設計的 第一種體會 是我們不斷强調的一致性 其實這種凡事必須完全相同的想法 僅僅極少數公司行得通 並非每間公司都合適
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.
音樂之家(Casa de Musica) 曾請我們設計雜誌 就是那個由 Rem Koolhaas 設計建造的音樂中心 在波爾圖,葡萄牙 僅管我想要把這個標誌 設計的與建築物造型没關係 結果却没有成功 一個主要原因 是因為Rem Koolhaas給波爾圖市做的一場簡報 他說到要把多層含意交織在一起 我起先没有明白 直到我把他的建築設計語言 翻成一般英語去理解 基本上,建築設計就是標誌設計 我才明白,那建築本身就是一個標誌
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.
事情因此變得十分容易 我們在建築上蒙了個罩子 從遠遠的地面查看 從各個角度查看 西,北,南,東 從上到下 用非常特殊的方式著色 讓我的一個朋友寫了一個軟體 叫音樂之家Logo製造器 把它連接到掃描機 把任何圖像放上,例如貝多芬 軟體可以立即 給你音樂之家貝多芬Logo 當你想設計一個有貝多芬像的海報 那軟體很有用,因為Logo的視覺元素 和海報是完全一樣的
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.
所以在概念的層面而言,它們一定能互相配合 如果演出Zappa的音樂,它會有自己獨特的Logo 或Philip Grass,或Lou Reed,或 Chemical Brothers 誰在那裡表演,誰就有自己的Logo 這是音樂之家自己的 Logo 在音樂之家内部也是一樣,不論是音樂之家主席,或是音樂總監 他們的音樂之家畫像就印在他們的名片上 有一個完整的管弦樂隊 駐扎在那所建築裡 他們擁有自己清晰的Logo 這是他們巡演用的卡車 它們還有一個較小的現代樂團 一個以"交織 "(remix) 為名的十二人樂團, 名字就交織在 Logo 中
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.
十分方便的是 你可以用這個Logo 創造廣告 就像這幅 Donna Toney海報 或蕭邦 (Chopin),或莫扎特 (Mozart) 或 La Monte Young 您可以根據它的形狀設計字樣 你還可以把它從外表長出來 你可以設計一張海報,介紹在音樂之家外面舉行的家族活動 或在音樂之家下面舉行的狂野派對 或每周定期舉行的活動 又或是教育服務
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.
第二種體會:在那次長假之前 多數時候 我都使用設計語言 幫助促銷 那並没有什麼不好 一方面我不反對銷售 我父母都是銷售員 但我覺得 我花了這多時間學習這種語言 為什麼僅用來幫助促銷? 應該還可以利用它做些其他事 這些作品都出自這個想法 有些你們可能已經見過 我在以前的TED會上曾經展示過 以前的TED會 標題是“至今我所學到的” 我現在就介紹兩項
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)
這是一整面牆的香蕉 不同的生熟程度 在一家紐約的畫廊開張那天 上面說 “自信產生優秀結果” 一周後 兩周後 三,四,五周後 你可以見到自信心幾乎都回来了 只是幾乎,不是全部 這是一些客人送給我的照片 (笑聲)
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."
阿姆斯特丹 給了我們一個廣場,並要我們做些事情 我們用石板作為網格 作為我們一件小作品的背景 我們從中央銀行提了25萬個硬幣 顏色有不同的深度 有的嶄新發亮 半舊的, 和非常舊的,發黑的 用了一周多的時間,得到了100多志願者的帮忙 創造了這個花卉模樣的字樣 文字是,“沉迷使生活更糟" 却使作品更好”
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.
我們的構思 是把圖樣做得很精美 要令觀賞者 覺得難以决定 我是要把這些錢盡量拿走 還是保持圖像完好無缺 在拼砌這個圖像的過程 與數百名志願者在一起的那個星期 有很多居住在周圍的居民 都走近它看,也很喜歡它 當它終於完工時 第一夜 一個人拿了一個大塑膠袋 把錢幣大堆大堆的装進袋子裡,直到他提不動為止 一位鄰居報了警
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)
阿姆斯特丹警方 急中生智 趕到現場, 看到一切 他們想保護這件藝術作品 就把錢幣都掃了起來 放到警察局好好保存 (笑聲) 看見他們掃了吧 那是警察,把作品全掃光了 8小時之後 所剩的就只有那麼多 幾乎全部掃光 (笑聲)
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.
我們還在巴厘島開始了一個更大的項目 是一個講關於快樂的電影 在這裡,我們請了附近的一些猪 為我們做標題 却嫌它們不够仔細 我們試用了鵝 希望她會做出 優雅美觀的作品 它却似乎太講究了 有點過分装飾 而我的工作室是在猴子森林邊 這猴子森林的猴子 看起來相當高興 我們又請了這些家伙幫忙 他們做得很出色, 但是 有可讀性問題 當然,如果你不自己親自做 就別指望完全滿意
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.
我們今後兩年將製作這部電影 還需要一陣子 你可能會想 製作關於快樂的電影 可能會不值得 你當然總是可以 去看看這個家伙
Video: (Laughter) And I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive. I'm happy I'm alive.
(笑瑜伽) 我很高興我活着 我很高興我活着 我很高興我活着
Stefan Sagmeister: Thank you. (Applause)
謝謝你們 (鼓掌)