Oh look, another studio desperate for attention.
You may have noticed a story in Creative Review last Thursday about a “robbery” at Sagmeister & Walsh’s Manhattan offices. As Stefan himself would say, “bullshit.”
It was an elaborate stunt conducted by the dudes at Achos, a “communication and design agency” based in Barcelona. The post linked above was fake, and they even “launched” the hashtag #creathieves, which has yet to catch on.
As Achos told the REAL Creative Review:
“We’ve been huge admirers of the work of Sagmeister & Walsh since we were students…We wanted to demonstrate that we’re young, we’re hungry, and we’re coming to take the work that’s currently going to the top agencies in the world. We thought going into their studio and stealing their work was a good declaration of our intentions. So we went into their studio and stole their work.”
More accurately, they recreated the studio based on the S&W home page’s 24-hour webcam. Then they bought a domain and recreated the Creative Review site for the purposes of the stunt.
They worried about the reaction, but S&W was glad to play along:
We are deeply saddened by this loss. Next time take the printer. http://t.co/g3J5gY7odt
— Sagmeister & Walsh (@sagmeisterwalsh) April 16, 2015
Jessica Walsh herself promoted the story after meeting with the Achos people at a conference near Barcelona:
The story behind the guys who stole our work 🙂 @achosbarcelonahttp://t.co/RF6drvr2QZ
— jessicawalsh (@jessicawalsh) April 21, 2015
It was an elaborate stunt, but these guys might be mistaken if they think they are going to “take” the work currently with “the top agencies in the world.”