Tibor George Kalman
Early life
Kalman was born on July 6, 1949, in
Budapest, to parents Marianne I. (née Deezsoffy or Dezsőffi) and George Tibor Kalman.
He became a United States resident in 1956, after he and his family fled
Hungary to escape the
Soviet Union invasion, settling in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Both of his parents had
Jewish ethnic roots and converted to
Catholicism to avoid persecution, so "Kalman only became aware that he was Jewish at the age of 18".
In 1967, he enrolled in New York University (NYU) to study journalism and history.
Career
In 1971, Kalman returned to New York City where he was hired by
Leonard Riggio for a small bookstore that eventually became Barnes & Noble. He later became the creative director of their in-house design department, where he created advertisements, store signs, shopping bags, and the original B&N bookplate trademark.
In 1979, Kalman – along with his wife
Maira Kalman,
Carol Bokuniewicz, and Liz Trovato – started the design firm M & Co., which did corporate work for such diverse clients as the
Limited Brands, the new wave rock group
Talking Heads, and Restaurant Florent in New York City's Meatpacking District.
[ Quote: Florent Morellet "left most of the 1950s luncheonette features intact, and gave Tibor Kalman and M & Co. to create ads and graphics that cultivated a Florent culture that survives today and extends well beyond the walls of the space."] He sought to challenge mundane design thinking and aspired to create unpredictable work.
Kalman also worked as creative director of
Interview magazine in the early 1990s.
By the 1980s, Kalman was known for being "the 'bad boy' of graphic design" because of his antics and radical consciousness. He believed that award-winning design was only possible when the client was ethical, and frequently called other designers out when he did not agree with their actions. He defined good design as a benefit to everyday life and should be used to increase public awareness of social issues.
Colors magazine
Kalman and
Oliviero Toscani started the
Benetton Group-sponsored magazine
Colors in 1991.
Two years later, Kalman closed M & Co. and moved to
Rome, to work exclusively on
Colors.
Billed as "a magazine about the rest of the world",
Colors focused on
multiculturalism and global awareness. This perspective was communicated through bold graphic design,
Multilingualism typography with texts in seven languages,
and juxtaposition of photographs and doctored images, including a series in which highly recognizable figures such as the Pope and Queen Elizabeth were depicted as racial minorities.
Personal life
From 1981 up until his death, Kalman was married to the illustrator and author
Maira Kalman (née Berman).
They met while attending NYU.
Together they had two children, Lulu Bodoni and Alex Onomatopoeia.
Death and legacy
The onset of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma forced Kalman to leave
Colors in 1995 and return to New York. In 1997, he re-opened M & Co. and continued to work until his death on May 2, 1999, in
Vega Alta,
Puerto Rico.
Kalman was
Posthumous award the 1999 AIGA medal as the "design profession's moral compass and its most fervent provocateur".
Publications
-
Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, a book about Kalman's work and that with M&Co, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 1999. Tibor Kalman (Designer); Peter Hall, Michael Bierut (Editors); Kurt Andersen, Steven Heller, Rick Poynor, Paola Antonelli, David Byrne, Jay Chiat, Jenny Holzer, Isaac Mizrahi, Florent Morellet, Leonard Riggio, Rebecca Robertson, Ingrid Sischy, Elizabeth Sussman, Olivero Toscani (Contributors)
See also
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First Things First 2000 manifesto
-
List of AIGA medalists
-
Colors
-
Naked
-
Remain in Light
External links
