Stefan Sagmeister
My friend wanted to quit design. She had a designer’s-block of sorts. So I wrote a letter to Stefan Sagmeister asking him what he does when he has a block. Sagmeister’s one of my design-mentors, only possible in the world of books and the web. I was just a random kid, but he wrote me back a huge long email about what he does when he’s stuck. He gave a reassuring-enthusiasm of the temporary nature of idea-blocks. When you’re young it just seems like those blocks could last forever and it sometimes spirals out of control. I printed out the three page long email and handed it to my friend. She felt really good. Sagmeister’s pretty well known now, speaking at TED, releasing two books, inspiring a whole generation of 3-D real-world typography, but he wrote back anyway to a random student in a random place for a random person.

I saw Stefan Sagmeister on the streets of New York this year, somewhere on the edge of Soho. I’d never seen him in person before, I blurted out “Stefan!” as if I knew him, and he walked over. I really should’ve been the one that walked over. We chatted a little bit about the time I wrote to him. He asked me “… Did I write back?” “Most Certainly” sigh of relief “oh good”.

Scott Summit
I applied to 57 design firms for internships my freshman year and called Summit ID to follow up. “I don’t think I’m going to hire anybody. It’s just me and my dog.”I thought he was a full fledged design firm, with a website more professional than any other design firm and all. After that statement, he spoke to me for an hour. He gave me lessons about portfolio development, following your passion and communicating your work well. Lessons I wouldn’t have learned until my senior year. Random student in a random place just making a call.

I went to San Francisco for an interview at a couple of places senior year, and called him to meet. We sat at a coffeeshop and talked about how he got to where he was today. How the freedom of working for yourself allowed him to go away for a month or two. Go get inspiration and bring it back. Sagmeister does a similar thing where he closes up shop every five/seven years for a whole year.

Summit and Sagmeister both live their dreams, revives that dream, and encourages anyone else to pursue their dreams. Ever since having interacted with them, I committed to help anyone who asks for design advice. Something substantial that they could use. I want to be a dream-enabler like Sagmeister and Summit.