Tibor Kalman was an American graphic designer of Hungarian origin, well known for his work as editor-in-chief of Colors magazine.
Early life
Kalman was born in Budapest and became a U.S. resident in 1956, after he and his family fled Hungary to escape the Soviet 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 NYU, dropping out after one year of Journalism classes to travel to Cuba to harvest sugar cane and learn about Cuban culture, as a member of the Venceremos Brigade.
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 Carol Bokuniewicz, and Liz Trovato - started the design firmM & Co., which did corporate work for such diverse clients as the Limited Corporation, the new wave rock group Talking Heads, and Restaurant Florent in New York City's Meatpacking District. 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. Kalman adopted a vernacular style as a way to protest corporate International Style which was the primary design style of the time. Kalman became founding editor-in-chief of the Benetton-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, typography, 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. In 1999, Kalman won the AIGA medal as the 'design profession's moral compass and its most fervent provocateur'.
Personal life
From 1981 up until his death, Kalman was married to the illustrator and author Maira Kalman.
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 Puerto Rico. Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, a book about Kalman's work and that with M&Co, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 1999.
