The November, 2010 issue of brand eins has a leading theme “learning to forget”. One of the article is also about Stefan Sagmeister and his sabbatical that developed into a project and a book: Things I learned in my life so far. There was also a believe a series of the lectures on the subject, one of them also in Ljubljana.
First lesson
The first lesson for me starts with the idea of the sabbatical. Mr. Sagmeister had a plan to do it every seven years for a year. And he did it. In 2000. And in 2007. But know he is doing it every year for three months. I think this is much better approach. For me even that approach is difficult to follow though. One little remark from this lesson. How did clients from Mr. Sagmeister react when he tolled them he will not be available for a year? In general very positive, but the winner is definitely Lou Reed, who just simply postponed the release of his album for a year to wait for Mr. Sagmeister to come back.
Second lesson
The second lesson. When Mr. Sagmeister came back from his firs sabbatical he decided to do three things:
- he will only work with clients he likes,
- he will employ maximum three designer and two intern-ships, and
- he doubled his prices.
Third lesson
Especially important to me seems that last action. Mr. Sagmeister need more the seven years to find the right pricing policy for his company. So never underestimate the prices in a design consultancy business. no mather which side are you on.
And the third is more an impression than a lesson. Mr. Sagmeister was supposed to be planning his days in sabbatical from 8:00 to 18:00 hours bi minute exactly. Respect.
Source: brandeins, November 2010, web article:
http://www.brandeins.de/archiv/magazin/vergessen-lernen/artikel/pausenzeichen.html
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