Lucky Strike Designer Award 2009 goes to Stefan Sagmeister

The Lucky Strike Designer Award, one of the leading international design awards with prize money of 50,000 euros, goes this year to Stefan Sagmeister, a star of the international graphic design scene and a winner of the coveted Grammy Award. His successful philosophy is: Design rocks!

With Stefan Sagmeister the Raymond Loewy Foundation, founded in 1991 by British American Tobacco in Hamburg, honours one of the world's most popular and most influential typographers and communication designers. "His work is highly creative, bold and innovative. It combines philosophy, politics and socially relevant subjects with avantgarde design; it's democratic, and accessible to everyone" – thus the the Foundation jury. The Lucky Strike Designer Award will be presented to Stefan Sagmeister this November in Berlin.

Stefan Sagmeister was born in Bregenz (Austria) in 1962 and studied graphic arts & design in Vienna. He then went to New York on a Fulbright scholarship, where he set up the design studio Sagmeister Inc. in 1993. His cover designs for albums by the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and Talking Heads achieved cult status. Sagmeister was nominated for a Grammy five times, and he won this coveted award in 2005 for his design of the Talking Heads CD box set "Once in a Lifetime". Stefan Sagmeister himself says: "It's a special honour for me that the Raymond Loewy Foundation has recognised my oeuvre to date with the Lucky Strike Designer Award.

Stefan Sagmeister caused a sensation all over the world with exhibitions and experimental projects, with poster hoardings, citylight posters and in public places. He has realised projects for Time Warner, the Guggenheim Museum, Columbia and Harvard universities and for various major publishers.

The collection of basic principles that he published in 2008 with the title "Things I have learned in my life so far" is a bestseller in the international design scene. Letter for letter and word for word, Sagmeister's messages are presented as a photo documentary in 15 magazines – in classic layouts, as text collages put together from garbage, as barrier tape, flowers or sculptural installations. The laser-cut front of the slipcase containing the magazines shows 15 different cover versions of the designer's portrait, depending on which magazine is placed uppermost in the case.

With its choice of Stefan Sagmeister as the winner of the 2009 Lucky Strike Designer Award, the jury of the 2009 Raymond Loewy Foundation follows its tradition of illuminating the entire spectrum of design in terms of both form and content and presenting them to the public.