Sagi Haviv is an Isralei-American graphic designer and was born in Kibbutz Nachshonim, Israel in 1974. He spent the majority of his childhood in Nachshonim until high school where he attended an art school, Telma Yelin, in Givatayim, Israel. He and his family moved to New York in 1996 and he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design from The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. 

His first design job was at Chermayeff & Geismar, a New York based branding and graphic design firm, which he joined in 2003. At Chermayeff & Geismar he created “Logomotion” which was a “ten-minute motion graphics tribute to the firm’s famous trademarks” (prabook.com). It got recognized and was exhibited in “New York at Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2003, in Washington DC in 2004, the Ginza Graphic Gallery in Tokyo in 2005, Centro in Mexico City in 2006, and the Pera Museum Istanbul in 2007” (peoplepill.com). After getting more acknowledged for his hard work and passion towards the graphic design craft, he was promoted to being a partner at Chermayeff & Geismar in 2006, the youngest ever to be deemed partner. Since then, he has created numerous iconic logos, such as NBC, PBS, StateFarm, and National Geographic, just to name a few. He has also helped with the production of several identity systems such as “systems for the Library of Congress, the National Parks of New York Harbor, Radio Free Europe, Conservation International, and the fashion brand Armani Exchange” (designersandbooks.com). He still works at Chermayeff & Geismar today, but also teaches Visual Identity Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He also co authored with Tom Geismar and Ivan Chermayeff the book Identify: Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks of Chermayeff & Geismar. He has served as a judge for the Art Directors Club of New York, the CLIO awards, and other design competitions.

As he is a very influential graphics artist, he is a frequent public speaker throughout the world and shares his design knowledge with other aspiring designers. In 2017, he gave a TED talk about logo design and emphasized how a logo doesn’t have to be liked right away. He used an example: Chase Bank. The original logo, introduced in 1799, was quite literal in the sense that its headquarters were located in America, but did not reflect a banking company except for the fact that it stated “Worldwide Banking” towards the top. When the rebranded logo was created in 1960, many people hated it because it was “too abstract” and at that time, there were few companies that were using abstract meanings and shapes to represent their businesses. But after it was adopted more and more people appreciated the simplicity of the blue octagonal mark that had meaning. This goes to show that a lot of the time, logos are not appreciated or loved initially, which is a hard thing to explain to a client, especially today, “when everyone wants to be liked instantaneously” (youtube.com). All in all, Sagi Haviv is and will always be considered an iconic graphic design artist not only because of his talent, but because of his understanding of the client.

 

Bibliography

Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, https://www.cghnyc.com/about/sagi/#:~:text=Sagi%20Haviv%20is%20a%20partner,the%20U.S.%20Olympic%20%26%20Paralympic%20Museum. 

Peoplepill.com. “About Sagi Haviv: Designer: Biography, Facts, Career, Life.” Peoplepill.com, https://peoplepill.com/people/sagi-haviv. 

“Sagi Haviv: Biography, Life, Work, Logos and Awards.” Famous Logos RSS, https://www.famouslogos.net/sagi-haviv/. 

“Sagi Haviv.” Designers & Books, https://www.designersandbooks.com/designer/bio/sagi-haviv. 

“Sagi Haviv.” Prabook.com, https://prabook.com/web/sagi.haviv/1903029. 

TEDxTalks. “Visual Identities: More than Just a Logo | Sagi Haviv | Tedxpenn.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 June 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcF1KBnlvTc.