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Brilliant. Inspirational. Banal. An asshole. All of these words have been used at one time or another to describe the work of Austrian-born Stefan Sagmeister. Dubbed one of today's most important graphic designers, Sagmeister's outwardly simple yet breathtakingly unique do-it-yourself style emerged at an early age. While still in school, he arranged his schoolmates on the playground in the shape of an A and used the photo for a poster publicizing Alphorn magazine's Anarchy issue. After moving to Vienna at the age of 19, Sagmeister met rock musician Alexander Goebel who introduced him to the Schauspielhaus Theatre Group for whom he designed posters as part of the Gruppe Gut Collective. A Fulbright scholarship to Pratt brought him to Brooklyn in 1987 where his girlfriend, aware of his costly past projects, asked him to design some business cards that wouldn't cost more than a dollar each. In response, he printed the cards on $1 bills. After three years in the U.S., Sagmeister returned to Austria for compulsory military service where he stayed until moving to Hong Kong in 1991 to join the advertising agency, Leo Burnett. When the agency was asked to design a poster for the 1992 4As Advertising Awards was when Sagmeister first raised controversy with a poster of four traditional Cantonese men baring their bottoms. Some ad agencies boycotted the awards while Hong Kong newspapers received numerous letters of complaint.

He returned to New York to work for Tibor Kalman's M&Co. after Kalman himself sponsored Sagmeister's green card application. When Kalman closed up shop, Sagmeister started his own studio where he designed a Grammy nominated CD cover for Mountains of Madness. The accolade attracted the attention of larger fish and he was asked to design the cover for Lou Reed's 1996 "Set the Twilight" and the Rolling Stones' 1997 "Bridges to Babylon." On top of music covers, Sagmeister took on commercial commissions and pro bono cultural projects such as his AIGA lecture postures, the most popular being 1999's AIGA Detroit when his assistant took an X-acto knife to Sagmeister's own flesh at his request to advertise the event. It may be hard for everyone to appreciate the humor, ambition, and eccentricities in the work of a designer who is constantly reinventing himself, but it's impossible to deny the impact he has had on the design community.

On March 6th at the Design Lecture Series for AIGA San Francisco at Adobe Headquarters, Stefan Sagmeister spoke to an anxious crowd about his life and inspiration while exhibiting a collection of his life's work compiled in his book, "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far." Here are some of the initial reactions from audience members who experienced the work of a man whose only constant is his eccentricities.