Responsible for album covers such as The Stones' Bridges To Babylon, he's the pop star of graphic designers. Scott Kara talks to Stefan Sagmeister, the modest man behind the art

tefan Sagmeister is one of the most important graphic designers in the world. He made his name with CD artwork in the '90s for artists such as David Byrne, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. Photo / Supplied

tefan Sagmeister is one of the most important graphic designers in the world. He made his name with CD artwork in the '90s for artists such as David Byrne, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. Photo / Supplied

Stefan Sagmeister is like the Keith Richards of billboard concepts. Or the Sid Vicious of poster and business card designs.

But the humble Sagmeister, on the phone from the New York office of Sagmeister Inc, the graphic design company he set up in 1993, laughs off the suggestion, even though he's done projects that Motley Crue and the dead-and-buried former Sex Pistol would be proud of.

There's the time he slashed large amounts of text into his skin for a poster advertising a lecture he was giving at the American Institute Of Graphic Arts. How Vicious is that? Or in his early design days when a girlfriend asked him to design business cards which didn't cost more than a $1 each, so he printed them on dollar bills.

Although he insists he's no rock star.

"Being a famous designer is like being a famous electrician," he says, borrowing a quote from his designer mate Chip Kidd. "If you're at an electrician's conference, everybody knows you and as soon as you step out of there, nobody has the slightest idea who you are," he laughs.

These days, with his diverse and unique designs for everything from packaging to billboards to installations, Sagmeister is one of the most important graphic designers in the world and his clients include the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed, television network HBO, and New York's Guggenheim Museum.

His works range from billboards for Super Bock beer in Portugal, to catalogues for fashion designer Anni Kuan, to a portable box with a slanted mirror on top, which holds postcards by artist Douglas Gordon as part of his exhibition The Vanity Of Allegory, which was on at the Guggenheim.

Sagmeister is in Auckland this week for the annual design event Semi-Permanent08 which brings together some of the world's most influential designers, photographers, illustrators and other creative types (see sidebar).

For most of us, graphic design is about the cereal packaging we rip into each morning or the billboards we see on the way to work.

So what place and power does Sagmeister think designers have in the world today?

"I think a lot of the things graphic designers do ... can be unbelievably powerful and extremely effective but completely invisible. We only realise and see this power when it fails catastrophically."

He says one of the most famous examples of this was the flaws in the Florida polling form during the 2000 presidential election when George Bush became president.