Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman was born in Budapest, Hungary on July 6th, 1949. His father George Kalman was an engineer and his mother Marianne was a housewife. Tibor was the oldest of two sones and when he was seven, Kalmans’ family escaped to America in 1956 when the Soviets began to invade Hungary. His family settled in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Kalman attended New York University in 1967, where he worked on the school newspaper and NYUs’ Student Book Exchange. He also joined the Students for Democratic Brigade. After attending only one year of journalism classes, Kalman dropped out of college. Then Kalman traveled with the Students for Democratic Society to Cuba in order to help pick cotton with the Vencermos Brigade. Venceremos Brigade is a politically motivated organization that that was founded by SDS and officials of the Republic of Cuba in 1969.

It was created as a coalition of young people who worked to challenge U.S. policies against Cuba by working side by side with the Cuban workers.

After Kalman returned from Cuba, Leonard Riggio, who had recently bought

Barnes and Noble and owned 20 college campus bookstores, appointed Kalman has the in-house art director in 1971. Kalman ended up working in Barnes and Noble for eight years, creating ads, logos, stationary, and shopping bags for high-class clientele. Kalman began hiring young design school graduates to execute his ideas while he maintained complete creative control.

M&Cos early client base only consisted of banks and smaller department stores.

M&Co was known for their ground breaking ideals, including wit, humor, and social satire. Kalmans work used deadpan and expressive styles interchangeably and together in harmony.

M&Co had employed and motivated some great artists, such as, Stefan Sagmeister, Stephen Doyle, Alexander Isley, Emily Oberman, and Scott Sowell. Kalman used M&Co as his own personal soapbox and to raise awareness to a lot of the issues in the world. One of the main issues was homelessness. Instead of sending out his normal gifts to clients, he sent out a box containing information about homelessness in America and it included typical items that a person living on the streets would have had.

One quote from Kalman is “You’ll Never Go Wrong When You Work with Someone Smarter than You”. Which not only refers to the two designers who helped him open up M&Co but, also includes young designers who knew more about typography than he did.

When Kalmans’ unique style became

In 1979 Kalman became bored with working for a student bookstore and established his own firm called M&Co with the help of Carol Buckeniewics and Liz Travato.

M&Co was named after kalmans’ wife Maira whose nickname was ‘M’. Kalman purposely used ‘M’ to obtain a mysterious view of his company and to confuse his straight-laced clientele. Kalman even designed his office to establish an unconventional aura. It contained a triangular shaped table and had a hole smashed into one wall with a sledge hammer as a reception window.

more well-known, his clientele increased to more people with his similar views. M&Co worked with a diverse range of corporations, including new wave group, Talking Heads and Restaurant Florent in New York Citys Meatpacking District.

He Designed Glasses and Matchbooks for Restaurant florent.

The Talking Heads album cover launched M&Co into prominence and greatly displayed their avant-garde style and launched their reputation. Kalman then became an art director and editor for Interview and Art Forum Magazines.

Kalman was co chairman of Dangerous Ideas which was and AIGA national conference in San Antonio. It was the first major event that focused the attention of attending designers to the decisions they make in hopes to avoid more environmental waste. As well as how they should not promote products that will harm people or the environment around them.

In 1993, Kalman closed down M&Co, relocated to rome became the editor of Colors Magazine where he focused on controversial topics such as racism, the over-sexualization of women, Aids, and smoking. He helped transform Colors into a global phenomenon and remained a driving force behind it. Another quote by Kalman is “When you make something no one hates, no one loves it” Kalman eventually left Colors Magazine and relocated to America after being diagnosed with cancer. He began his book called Perverse Optimist which shows a big chunk of his work including spreads and designs from books and magazines. Kalman included “I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability.

That’s what we really pay attention to anyway. We don’t talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing.” Within his new book.

Tiborcity was a comprehensive exhibition of Kalmans work that was set up and displayed after he passed away in 1999. It contained over 200 works from his personal collections as well as arvhices from M&Co. the exhibition was styled to evoke a Mythical village which was a great representation for his works. Kalman was placed in the ADC Hall of Fames and also earned AIGAs’ highest honor of Graphic Design Award in 1999.