Stefan Sagmeister continues his work with the usual irony, also for the design of the cups for illy Art Collection for which he invented the slogan NOW=BETTER, now it’s better. It is true that our life it is better than a hundred years ago, we live longer, we are richer and better educated overall. Of course, saying it these days might sound bizarre, but it is true that to the distressing news – the coronavirus, the wars, the floods, etc. – there are just as many good news – Joe Biden as president of the USA for example!

Sagmeister plays with a design that mirrors the saucer on the titanium surface of the cup, generating coloured growing curves, a sort of abstract infographic of the coffee break that generates the “better data”. With a long-term perspective, things aren’t so bad, he says.

In the video, an exploded cup is reassembled while he watches it, he even reads a book, and not just any book, the catalogue of the Tallin Architecture Biennale 2019 Beauty Matters: Civilisation Could Not Exist Without the Experience of Beauty. In recomposing the object in the video, he reiterates that one can restore beauty and order to the chaos of the world.

Will this be true?