Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman (1949-1999) was a Hungarian graphic designer, known for his work on the magazine Colors.

Biography

Kalman was born in the city of Budapest; However, he moved to the United States in 1956.

He studied journalism at NYU, but dropped out after a year. In the 1970s, Kalman worked at a small bookstore in New York, which later became Barnes & Noble, of which Kalman was supervisor of the company's internal department.

In 1979, together with Carol Bokuniewicz and Liz Trovato, he created the design agency M&Co., with clients such as Limited Corporation, the New Wave music group Talking Heads and the Florent restaurant in the butcher district of New York.. He also worked as creative director of Interview magazine in the early 1990s.

In 1990, he was elected editor-in-chief of the magazine Colors sponsored by the Benetton brand. Three years later, he closes M & Co., and moves to Rome so he can work exclusively on the magazine.

Promoted as 'a magazine about the rest of the world', Colors focused on multiculturalism and global awareness. This perspective was communicated through its graphic design, typography and juxtaposition of photography and retouched images, which included a series in which famous people such as the Pope and Queen Elizabeth were portrayed as characters from racial minorities.^{[citation needed]} Kalman left the magazine in 1995.

In 1997, M&Co recovered. where he would work until his death in Puerto Rico two years later (from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) and shortly before a retrospective of his work, titled Tiborocity began its tour of the United States at the Museum of San Francisco Modern Art. In 1999, 'Tibor Kalman: perverse optimist' was published, about Kalman's work in M&Co.