TIBOR KALMAN
PERVERSE OPTIMIST
Peter Hall [Editor], Michael Bierut [Designer]
New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998. American First Edition [originated by Booth Clibborn Editions]. Quarto. Photo illustrated paper covered boards. Decorated endpapers. 420 [!] pp. Fully illustrated in color and elaborately graphic design throughout. Cover portrait by Vanguard Studios, Bombay c. 1992. Close inspection reveals trivial wear, so a nearly fine copy.
8.25 x 9.75 hardcover book with 420 [!] pages of Tibor Kalman’s graphic design work through 1998. Contributors includes Kurt Andersen, Paola Antonelli, David Byrne, Jay Chiat, Steven Heller, Isaac Mizrahi, Chee Pearlman, Rick Poynor, and Ingrid Sischy. For twenty years, more or less, Tibor has been the New York Design Scene's conscience, bad boy, idealist and provocateur.
Throughout his 30-year career, Tibo Kalman brought his restless intellectual curiosity and subversive wit to everything he worked on -- from album covers for the Talking Heads to the redevelopment of Times Square. Kalman incorporated visual elements other designers had never associated with successful design, and used his work to promote his radical politics. The influence of his experiments in typography and images can be seen everywhere, from music videos to the design of magazines such as Wired and Ray Gun.
Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist is the definitive and exuberant document of the late Tibor Kalman's work and ideas. This full-color, oversize title reveals Kalman's thoughts on magazines, advertising, sex, bookstores, food, and the design profession. Product designs, stills and storyboards from his film and video projects, and spreads from his book and magazine work are included.
Tibor Kalman, probably best known for the witty designs of his company M&Co and his provocative work for Benetton's Colors magazine, defines the eclectic multidisciplinary approach that has come to characterize graphic design in the past decade. Eclectic is perhaps an understatement: Kalman's work ranges from journalism, advertising, and publishing to watches, paper weights, rulers, album covers, t-shirts, film titles, commercials, urban guidelines, and more. Born in Budapest in 1949, Kalman emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He soon began working at Barnes & Noble, where he later became design director; he subsequently worked as art director at Artforum and Interview. His international acclaim came largely as a result of his work at M&Co, the trend-setting design firm he founded in New York City in 1979.
Tibor, designed by Michael Bierut of Pentagram and edited by I.D. Magazine senior writer Peter Hall, is the first comprehensive collection of Kalman's work and ideas. This full-color title-numbering over 400 pages-includes a pictorial manifesto by Kalman, revealing his thoughts on magazines, advertising, sex, bookstores, food, and the design profession. Product designs, stills and storyboards from his film and video projects, and spreads from his book and magazine work are included, creating what Kalman calls "an almanac of oddities."
From Matthew Haber’s 1999 Obituary notice: “ [Tibor] Kalman was best known for the groundbreaking work he created with his New York design firm, M&Co, and his brief yet influential editorship of Colors magazine. Throughout his 30-year career, Kalman brought his restless intellectual curiosity and subversive wit to everything he worked on -- from album covers for the Talking Heads to the redevelopment of Times Square. Kalman incorporated visual elements other designers had never associated with successful design, and used his work to promote his radical politics. The influence of his experiments in typography and images can be seen everywhere, from music videos to the design of magazines such as Wired and Ray Gun.”
”... Born in Budapest in 1949, Kalman and his parents were forced to flee the Soviet invasion in 1956. They settled in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., when he was 8. Kalman was ostracized in elementary school until he learned to speak English. “
”Kalman parlayed his childhood isolation into some of his most successful design innovations. “He was keenly passionate about things of the American vernacular because he wasn’t American,” Chee Pearlman, editor of I.D. magazine, remarked shortly after Kalman’s funeral. “In that sense, he taught the whole profession to look at things that they may not have seen as closely or taken as seriously.”