Now is Better

by Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister’s newest project encourages long-term thinking and reminds us that many things in the world are improving.

Initially conceived in 2020 as the world entered pandemic lockdown, Stefan Sagmeister has created a book that looks at the state of the world today, illuminating, through collected data, how far we’ve come, and encouraging us to think about where we can go from here. Statistics are vividly brought to life, as numbers are transformed into graphs, inlaid into nineteenth-century paintings, embroidered canvases, lenticular prints, and hand-painted water glasses. 

The book includes a foreword from psychologist and leading authority on language and the mind, Steven Pinker; a featured essay by graphic designer and historian Steven Heller; and a conversation between Sagmeister and Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and artistic director of Serpentine Galleries in London and will appeal to all visually minded readers, providing a positive reaction to the tumultuous news cycle of recent years.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Design

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2023

About the author

Stefan Sagmeister (born 1962 in Bregenz, Austria) is a New York-based graphic designer and typographer. He has his own design firm—Sagmeister Inc.—in New York City. He has designed album covers for Lou Reed, OK Go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.

Reviews

[ALLA ZAIATS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Рекомендую сприймати цю книгу не як літуратурне надбання, бо тексту тут мало, він не сильно структурований, в ньому відсутня логічна сюжетна лінія.

Рекомендую сприймати цю книгу як альбом відомого та непересічного сучасного митця, який візуалізовує дані на перетині минулого та теперішнього. Головна ідея - показати наскільки світ змінився на краще.

Загалом, ідея надзвичайно крута, а виконання викликає багато емоцій. В книзі багато прикладів якісного дизайну, а за цим завжди цікаво спостерігати.

Книга сподобалась, справжнє натхнення в чистому вигляді.

[Nastya Goncharova · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is beautiful but boring and quite shallow with a lack of humour or outstanding insights. It felt to me like a huge museum leaflet where the author didn’t know what to say and had to fill the space with letters.

Even the book's structure ironically wasn’t designed well. For example, why would you put footnotes at the end of a chapter instead of the same page? Or why do you interrupt the narrative on half of a word with several picture spreads? Or why there are two types of explanation for the artworks: one plane without numbers right next to the picture and another detailed with numbers lying separately at the very end of the book? Should it be some sort of puzzle?

Two stars for the pretty pictures, minus three for the book itself.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t look to this for any kind of template for good data visualizations. These are interesting artworks whose genesis is the exploration of data sets, but they are not effective visualizations.

The pictures are very pretty, though

[Jonathan Dunkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The October 2023 Print Magazine Book Club selection. Strangely, despite Sagmeister's having written numerous books, there were problems with this being added to Goodreads but it is now on the site.

I have been a fan of Sagmeister's and as a statistician, was looking forward to his take on data visualization. I was immediately struck with how bad it was. Basic informational design tenets were ignored and for many of the "graphs" it was kind of difficult to figure out what was being portrayed.

About 80-100 pages in, Sagmeister addressed the issue and that enabled me to appreciate what he was doing a lot better. More so than the medium, his message that now, for all the doom and gloom that fill our newsfeeds and social media and however else we engage with news, is actually a really good time to be alive and was really the impetus behind the book. People are healthier, they have more rights, children don't have to work the mines, there are more democracies worldwide and much more.

While it would have been nice for him to actually tackle design aspects of data visualization, what he did do made for a beautiful book (Phaidon doesn't really publish non-beautiful books) and brought some much needed optimism into my life.

[James Van Arsdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had me thinking differently about alot of things. And I noticed myself being surprised often. The beautiful and unique works are not meant to convey specific data in any sort of exact way, and those who are looking for that are misguided. They are meant to invoke feeling and reflection — that is what good art does.

[Anya Tymoshenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Класно вміє Стефан продавати свої ідеї і розвити одну ситуацію в дослідження та роздуми. По контексту вона не вичерпна, але все одно цікава для подальшого самостійного дослідження різних тем, чому наше життя зараз краще за всі попередні століття. Найбільше в творчості Стефана мені імпонує його відкритий розум і хід мислення для його дизайн рішень.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

inhalt: okay, aber keine bahnbrechend neue erkenntnis (hans rosling, factfulness, 2019). auch die ausgewählten fakten selbst, sind nicht überraschend. klar, heute ist vieles besser als vor 100 jahren. interessant ist doch aber eher der vergleich von heute mit 10, 20 oder 30 jahren zuvor. ein zeithorizont, auf den wir also selbst zurückblicken können. leben wir denn besser? sind wir glücklicher? und vor allem: wird die erfolgsgeschichte so weitergehen? der letzte satz des buches zeigt doch alles: fortschritt wird zurückgenommen.

interview: auf obrist hatte ich mich gefreut. das gespräch war aber ohne aussage, flach und teilweise eine wiederholung von bereits gelesenem. keine analyse, keine einordnung.

kommerz: ja, man kann die idee der datenvisualisierung auf vieles übertragen. aber muss es eine uhr sein, die sich so gut wie keiner leisten kann oder gläser, aus denen fast niemand trinkt? im verlauf des buchs tritt das eigentliche thema zunehmend in den hintergrund. es werden
nur noch projekte zur schau gestellt. die daten, das thema verkommen zur randnotiz.

druck: muss ein buch, das vor allem im deutschsprachigen raum verkauft wird, in china gedruckt werden?

werk: buchschnitt in silber, naja. schrift aus bleiguss, okay. aber die bilder selbst, die integration der daten in die leinwand, sehen unglaublich gut aus. kein mensch wird sie verstehen, aber egal. sie stehen für sich. sie sind das beste am gesamten buch.