As part of our week 4 SDL (unrelated to research and concept sketches) we are to provide a written (and spell checked) final draft of the text based content that we will need to include in our poster timeline design.
Here is the finalised text I have decided on:
1968: Kalman started working at a bookstore (Later known as Barnes & Noble’).
1972 - 1978: Kalman continued to work in Barnes & Noble as a creative supervisor.
1979: Kalman co-founded M&Co. with Liz Trovato, Carol Bokuniewicz and his girlfriend Maia.
1991: M&Co. was hired to design Benetton Groups sociopolitical magazine COLORS.
1993: Kalman closed M&Co. and temporarily left New York for Rome, Italy to co-found and become editor in chief of the COLORS magazine, with Oliviero Toscani.
1997: He re-established M&Co, and taught graduate students at the New York School of Visual arts at that time.
02.05.1999: Kalman was awarded with the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) medal as the ‘design profession’s moral compass and its fervent provocateur’.
Week 4: Designer Research (III) & Visual References
SDL:
For our SDL this week, our tasks are separated into two categories. We are asked to collect more research and various information ranging from designer reseach to visual references.
To start off my research, I first started by collecting various work Tibor Kalman has done. After a while of looking through his design works, which were all vastly different and contributes to different purposes, I decided to settle and focus on his most prominent works. Kalman’s most notable works are the ‘Colors’ magazine, where he directed and contributed to 13 issues that sparked various controversial topics.
“The work of Tibor Kalman blurred the boundaries between design, journalism, art and politics, but, above all, he trusted the power of the image.” (Guardian)
“The combination of typography and Kalman’s provocative use of confrontational imagery is what made the publication “ a magazine about the rest of the world.” For example, on the very first issue of Colors Magazine, to represent the “birth” of the publication, Kalman included an image of a doctor holding newborn baby with its umbilical cord still attached; he emphasised the baby crying by placing text in a radial pattern around the infant.” (Designhistory)
As seen all throughout Kalman’s works, his designs are all highly pictorial and relies a lot on what the image conveys. On top of his bold choice of visual images, there are also a considerable use of typography. His texts are all easy to read - despite some being laid out inconsistently.
Visual References
I’ve collected various photos of Tibor Kalman that I am considering to incorporate alongside my timeline design. Surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find a lot of photos of Kalman, and was only able to collect a few photos of him and a few of him with his wife, Maira Kalman.
I am considering using the top left image alongside the bottom right image. As most of his photos only come in black and white, I thought i’d use only the monochrome photographs. I am considering cutting out the image (erasing the background) and focus on highlighting Kalman as the main subject/focal point. This seems to be the appropriate approach when referring back to Kalman’s extensive use of visual elements.
Visual References - Timeline Examples
I have collected a few timeline posters that really stood out to me, and are closely linked to either my designer’s style of work, or contains elements I wish to explore in my own poster design.
While researching, I came across this poster timeline design of Tibor Kalman by Josh Jackson. Other than the fact that this poster served as an example of how I could approach my timeline design, I was immediately taken in by the illustration and unique subject arrangement. The texts are neatly arranged (not overbearing), the yellow, despite it being quite strong, did not hinder the overall design with its bright colour. To top off this arrangement, the visual element in this poster was so strong and communicates a clear direction. Though I am not considering implementing any illustrations, I am definitely drawn in by the strong compositional style.
Tibor Kalman by Daphne van Drenth.
This was another timeline design on Tibor Kalman that I managed to find. Though this was more of an infographic rather than a timeline poster, I decided to include this as one of my visual reference. This particular design was very unique and relies a lot more on typographic arrangement. The overall design is very minimal and clean, paired with a strong accent of red (where droplets of red are splattered across the page). The direction/flow and the purpose of the arrangements are clear and easy to follow. I want to explore this minimal and fluent arrangement and see how this type of composition works with Kalman’s spontaneous design.
Graphic Design Timeline with a Focus on Bauhaus by Seham Hakmi
This timeline design was one that was introduced to us by Karol in the earlier presentations. I am interested in how this design is structured (in a way that is both consistent and easy to follow) and want to incorporate this concept into my own work. This timeline uses a lot of flat images and shapes throughout its arrangements, and are effectively placed in a way that does not crowd the page nor the information. I think that minimal or neat arrangements would work well with Kalman’s style of works, and am inclined to test out these concept ideas.
For this week’s SDL, we are given two tasks. We are first tasked to research our allocated designer further and to narrow/specify what years within the designer’s life we will be putting in the timeline. This also meant that we are given the choice of picking to only focus on the designer’s career or lay out a full biography.
06.07.1949: Date of birth
1956: Kalman and his family moved to Poughkeepsie, New York after the Soviet invasion.
1967: Enrolled in New York University as a journalism student. While he was an active member of the ‘Students for a Democratic Society’, he met Maria, his greatest influence and later on, wife.
1968: Kalman dropped out after a year of journalism classes and worked as a bartender before Maia convinced him to work at ‘Student Book Exchange’ (the unofficial bookstore) where he was given the opportunity to organise and design various parts of the store such as window dressing, alphabetising books and designing signs. There was an instance where Kalman assembled random milk crates to form a unique and unconventional bookshelf that helped the store make a great deal of business as the style piqued the interests of many. The owner, Leonard Reggio, was especially fond of Kalman that when he opened a local chain of book stores (Barnes & Noble’) he appointed Kalman as the creative supervisor.
1971: Kalman’s career in the bookstore did not last long before he left for Cuba, picking cotton in a program for middle class Americans to help support the communists (Venceremos Brigade).
1972 - 1978: Kalman returned to New York to continue working in Barnes & Noble. For eight years, he worked on bag design, store signs (the original B&N bookplate trademark) and other visual merchandising. For Kalman, this was his only design training throughout his early career.
1979: Kalman co-founded M&Co. with Liz Trovato, Carol Bokuniewicz and his girlfriend Maia. Within a few years, the firm attracted numerous high profile clients such as Restaurant Florent and Talking Heads.
1981: Married his wife, Maria Kalmam, an illustrator and author.
1991: M&Co. was hired to design Benetton Groups sociopolitical magazine COLORS. The magazine was produced in-house at the studio until 1993.
1993: Kalman closed M&Co. and temporarily left New York for Rome, Italy to co-found and become editor in chief of the COLORS magazine, with Oliviero Toscani.
1995: Kalman was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
1997: Kalman returned to New York to seek treatment. He re-established M&Co, and taught graduate students at the New York School of Visual arts at that time.
02.05.1999: Kalman was awarded with the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) medal as the ‘design profession’s moral compass and its fervent provocateur’. Passed away due to cancer at the age of 49.
I have decided to note down Tibor Kalman’s overall biography rather than just focusing on his works as I thought it would be quite interesting to see how his background during the time affected his designs. All the information I have so far collected will change and be assessed on further as I plan to include better detailed information.
(To ensure I am collecting information that is accurate and correct, I have cross referenced the first four website when noting down specific years and dates. This was really helpful as I did not have to constantly re-enter keywords into my search bar to see if the information I have gathered are inaccurate.)
In addition to the surface information I have gathered of my allocated designer, I also wanted to further study on their past work. I feel that it is important that I have a rough idea of my given designer’s style of works and understanding the design elements they have inputted. Tibor Kalman was described to be eccentric, spontaneous, innovative and most importantly, creative. He worked on various projects throughout his career, such as the COLORS magazine and collaboration with Talking Head. I have compiled my research (as well as the website links) down below.
In addition to my initial research, I included more information on Kalman’s design beliefs. These research are mostly directly collected from my sources, and I have underlined the important takeaways of each passage.
To understand Tibor Kalman’s designs, I needed to look into what ‘Vernacular Design’ is. Basically, the Vernacular design refers to the spontaneous, unconfined and free flowing design that Kalman often includes in his works.
I wanted to find a more in-depth analysis of Kalman’s work and style, so I did a further research on the COLORS magazine. From this research, I realised that Kalman did not have a prominent design style. Though he does work a lot with typefaces and various styles of typographies, Kalman believes the unconventional style of ‘Vernacular Design’, which allows him to produce various designs that are not bound to a specific style.
