Stefan Bucher’s Inner Monsters

We’ve had a lot of nice This is My Life montages, but Stefan Bucher‘s is pretty much the best (and you can see it online along with a bunch of other awesome videos!) From a young nerd to working at Wieden + Kennedy to becoming an adult who made a lot of professional mistakes, Stefan says there’s a common theme throughout all this madness:  “Why did I do all this? So I could stay up late and make the things I want to make.” But he’s regulated his lifestyle by staying independent, and living within a very small footprint. Of course this means he’ll never get a huge airline account, for example, but he also doesn’t have any debt.

Stefan Bucher explains a book cover design.

But you know how some people have inner demons? Well, Stefan’s could be called something more like monsters. Dueling monsters. He finds himself constantly fighting the eternal battle between his subconscious and his conscious; his sunny side and his dark side (is that also his German side vs. his American side?). Some glimpses of his double personalities…

When re-envisioning a new Super Bowl logo for a New York Times feature, he eschewed flashy, even sporty: “I wanted to make the nerdiest Super Bowl logo in existence.” He not only designed, but concepted, wrote the copy for, and assembled some amazing parody products for the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, a tutoring center in Los Angeles. These back-to-the-future convenience store products include Mammoth Chunks and the Time-Freezy Hyper Slush machine (an old Slurpee machine) which is tagged with the brilliant hand-written sign: “Out of order, come back yesterday.” And Stefan’s own brand of humor is extremely apparent in his blog alter-ego, The Neologist, a special website where Stefan himself will create an impressive compound word that answers your word needs.

Stefan Bucher and His 100 Monsters

Finally, Stefan’s Daily Monsters, his ongoing project that began as a challenge to draw 100 monsters in 100 days and eventually led to a book. Stefan drew a monster just for us! And he’s interacting with it onstage (is this like his dark side and his bright side having a conversation?). But something truly amazing came out of the monsters project; the new version of The Electric Company signed him on to turn the monsters into letters by coloring in the negative space. Yes, typography and monsters can work together to teach children how to read. We’re learning through fear.

Stefan Bucher’s Superbowl “Logo”

But the two Stefans got to cooperate for his latest project, The Graphic Eye, a book of designers’ photographs he curated and designed. Even though it’s a beautiful book full of sumptuous photographs, he was able to arrange the images into curious narratives and juxtapositions, which tell some pretty subversive stories. It’s the one time he’s truly felt like he could be true to: “It’s a subconscious and conscious came together for a family picnic.”