Don't make life a dull day, life can be no more than a Gap year! Designer Stefan Sagmeister a speech at TED telling you about the importance of your vacation, putting yourself in a new environment and getting your life back!

Do you think you can have more than one Gap year in your life?

Do you have a feeling of burnout in daily work everyday, because of the repetition of life? Designer Stefan Sagmeister to share with us in a TED speech the way he has renewed his passion for life, give yourself a year's vacation every few years, take a vacation, reexamine your inner space, arrange for yourself unknown life, enrich your life, Life in addition to survival is more important to let yourself live well-live in the present, enjoy life.

The following excerpt from the designer Stefan Sagmeister TED speech, share with you the importance of vacations:

I opened a design studio in New York, and every seven years I closed it for a year, and I had a little experiment-something that wasn't usually easy to do in the normal work year, and we didn't take any customer appointments, and we closed the studio completely. I believe you can imagine that this is a beautiful and energetic time. (Recommended reading: more than 10 years of self breakdown after the trip: Gap year in London, let me completely zero )

I started this studio in New York, combining my two passions: music and design.

We make films and packaging, and there are many things you are familiar with musicians, and more are musicians you have never heard of. I find that, like many things in life that I love, one is accustomed to gradually become boring, and my studio is no exception, our work began to become the same, for example, the book with a glass-made eyes, and the same design packaging used in our perfume packaging There is a bottle of perfume hidden in a book. So we decided to close the studio for a year.

For this decision, I have another reason, at present we probably use the first 25 years of life study, after 40 years of dedication to work, put to the end of life, is about 15 years of retirement life.

I think a more reasonable and helpful way of allocating time may be to take 5 years of retirement time and put them in the working years. Obviously, I am very happy with this decision, and more importantly, the results of these years of vacation, can repay the company, give back to the community, not only for one or two grandchildren.

Two years ago, a TED speaker named Jonathan Haidt, who defined his work as three levels, gave me a deep sense of identity. I can see my work as a labor, for money, Thursday began to look forward to the weekend, I may need a hobby to balance my work, or I can take my job as a professional, so I will do more attentively, but sometimes I think, I spend so much energy is worth it?

The third level, is to see work as a "call", it is likely that I will do anyway, even if there is no money, the material return does not matter.

I'm a man of no religious faith, but I respect and adore nature, my first vacation was in New York City Center, I hope the second will be different, Europe and the United States is not attractive to me, I am too familiar with them, so I chose Asia as my second vacation destination, The most beautiful scenery I have ever seen was in Sri Lanka and Bali, but there was still a civil war in Sri Lanka, so I chose Bali Island. (Recommended reading:"Workplace notes" a professional worker, to know how to rest )

Bali is a wonderful and highly valued handicraft country, I arrived there in September 2008, and I was immediately attracted by the aura and nature of the environment, but I seemed to need a bottle of mosquito repellent first--there were so many mosquitoes, and then again, I needed some way to drive those around my house, And when I enjoy the morning walk, I come to attack my stray dogs.

This inspired me to make 99 stray dog T-shirts, a puppy a T-shirt, and as a small revenge for me, I added a little, threatening message--so many dogs, so few recipes, behind every T-shirt.

Before I left New York, I thought I could decorate my studio and leave the renovation work to others. I do not worry about the details, just buy the furniture, but I found that I like the furniture, I can not afford to buy, I do not like, so I am in Bali to do one of the things is the design of furniture, design process, of course , and we continue to struggle with the wild dogs.

And I made a pact with the dogs after the work was done.

Back to my first vacation, it was not a very successful start, things started not very smoothly, I thought no need to plan vacation, those free time itself will be very beautiful, can innovate. But I was wrong, and I found no plan, I started to move my time into everyday chores, so I started planning my vacation, categorizing my interests into chunks of the day, and, as in primary school, listing a schedule, 8 to 9-point fiction, 9 to 10, imagining the future- It's not going very well--and other plans, I've found that this change is a good change for vacation planning, and I found my passion for design through this vacation, and I spent the rest of my time enjoying the benefits of my work through high quality design outputs, or perhaps the most important thing This year's vacation was a source of inspiration for our design in the next seven years. (Recommended reading: creation without inspiration, because you lost life )

And in the course of these long holidays I have these insights and learning:

The revelation of the Holidays 1: Breaking the consensus of social expectations

"In the process of building a brand, consistency is not a practical idea," he said. "--stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister mentioned in the process of creation, the idea that society is constantly emphasizing consistency, the desire to have the same rules, and the need to be broken, is to be able to jump out of the old thinking, to burst out of the possibility of creativity, and to develop the uniqueness of each individual, and such creative works are unique in the world.


Stefan Sagmeister Design Works


Stefan Sagmeister Design Works

Vacation Revelation 2: Design should not be for sale only, but also pay attention to human nature and goodwill

"Design should not be for sale only, it should package more possibilities." "--stefan Sagmeister

In the past, designer Stefan Sagmeister always used his learning as a design package to sell goods and brands, and these long vacations let him know that, in addition to the use of learning in sales, he can also be designed to arouse the goodwill of humanity, or in daily life to give the public some increase the joy of humor. Design is no longer a sales gimmick, it can wrap more human attention and life ingenuity inside. (Recommended reading: give the world a more gentle posture!) Chan: "My song wants to convey a kind of kindness")


Obsession makes life worse.

In Stefan Sagmeister's seven-year vacation model, he learns to pull himself away from too singular a working state, to broaden his mind, to give life the possibility of being stimulated, to inspire more inspiration, to constantly throw himself into the new environment and life, to experience life, to find his passion for creation, The call to work as life to him, the source that sustains his endless creativity, is the mark of his experience of life.

Know how to jump off the rules of the life map, in their own way to experience life, take vacations as a necessity of life, it will make you understand the boring life of what you can not let go of the need, it will allow you to find life in addition to survival and life, use the time of the holiday with their own dialogue, the hollowed out of their own to fill back, to regain the love of life It will allow you to begin to experience a different life experience, and under these encounters you may be able to meet your own purpose, or you may have a different mind on this journey and grow into something else that is more loyal to your soul.