Sigi Mayer (*1950)
Artist and self-taught designer, design guru and enfant terrible, craftsman and lateral thinker, Austrian design legend and tireless critic of Austrian timidity: these are some of the common and yet, at the same time, unsuccessful attempts to describe a man, who decidedly escapes every attempt to classify him, whether conceptually or personally. But while this is a situation given to the creation of a legend, there are at least a few hard facts: the Upper Austrian graphic designer, art director, furniture and product designer Sigi Mayer established, in 1990, the agency Sigi Mayer Projekt and later “Projekt Orange”. Despite his multiple talents he has always radically pursued his own philosophy of “despising the norm”. With his clear, pointed and richly allusory catalogue designs for the small Upper Austrian delicatessen company Brigitta Zettl, Sigi Mayer goes against the grain of the kitsch and folklore which usually dominate the genre with such success that the printed materials from Oftering with their totally non-provincial appearance have become international collectors’ items. His contribution to the “Stamps for Europe” competition is clear proof of his courage while lending some substance to the rumours that Sigi Mayer has little time for briefings.