Sagmeister & Walsh
The Happy Show

Temporary Installation, 2012

3d Design, Fabrication Oversight

Overview

As the resident “3d guy,” my friends at Sagmeister & Walsh reached out to help them problem solve the fabrication of a typographic sculpture. Having studied Sagmeister’s work in school, I should not have been surprised when fabrication consisted of gluing 80,000 individual sugar cubes together.

The project grew organically, at first translating sketches into 3d models and building plans for the sculpture. We then sourced the massive quantity of sugar cubes, tapping much of the city’s retail and wholesale supply, and settled on an adhesive of eggwhite and powdered sugar to glue the cubes together without melting them. Then labor came in the form of over 100 volunteers in our humble studio, for about two weeks of reality-tv-like organizational shenanigans.

We further began a long-standing relationship with Red Paper Heart, who’s face detection and projection mapping brought the sculpture to life with a visitor’s smile.

created at Ladies & Gentlemen

An Interactive Projection for Sagmeister & Walsh. Our role in the The Happy Show by Sagmeister & Walsh Inc. was to project animations onto typography that was created out of sugarcubes. While Sagmeister’s designers and a team of volunteers tirelessly glued sugarcubes into the phrase “Step Up to It,” we began working with Christopher Fung and the folks at Ladies and Gentlemen on the projections. We thought about the show as a whole, and kept coming back to the idea that there are some things in life that only happy people see. Naturally, we suggested that the "Step Up to It" projections would only reveal certain animations to happy viewers. In doing so we imagined a way to actually create happiness in the process. It’s hard to be unhappy when you’re smiling. “Step Up to It” animates in pure simple black and white until a viewer smiles, causing the sugar to light up with bright colors. The Sculpture is traveling with Stefan Sagmeister's The Happy Show: ICA Philadelphia, April 4th through August 12th, 2012 Design Exchange, Toronto, January 9 through March 3, 2013 MOCA Los Angeles, Pacific Design Center, March 20 through June 9, 2013 https://redpaperheart.com/work/stepuptoit