My grandfather was educated in sign painting and I grew up with many of his pieces of wisdom around the house, traditional calligraphy carefully applied in gold leaf on painstakingly carved wooden panels.

One of his panels, still hanging in our hallway in Austria, reads:
This house is mine, and it isn't mine
the second guy wont own it either,
They will carry out the third one too,
so tell me, my friend, whose house is it?

I am just following this tradition with Trying to look good limits my life. The title of this work (and its content) is among the few things I have learned in my life so far (some of the others are: Having guts always works out for me and Everything I do always comes back to me).

Broken up into 5 parts Trying/to look/good/limits/my life and displayed in sequence as typographic billboards, they work like a sentimental greeting card left in a park north of Paris.

Things I have learned in my life so far.

Astonishingly, Stefan Sagmeister has only learned twenty or so things in his life so far. But he did manage to publish these personal maxims all over the world, in spaces normally occupies by advertisements and promotions: as billboards, projections, light-boxes, magazine spreads, annual report covers, fashion brochures, and, recently, as giant inflatable monkeys. In this presentation Sagmeister throws his diary, a lot of design, and a little art together with a pinch of psychology and a dash of happiness into a blender and pushes the button. It tastes surprisingly yummy.

This book was published in Spring 2008 by Abrams featuring 15 different covers and 256 pages.