general

I don't own this book--yet. I read it at the bookstore and I am waiting for amazon to release it so that I can get the 18 dollar off the 60 dollar list price. This is a great catalogue of all the work Tibor has done in his career. The book starts with a series of Tibor's saying and open into the 'catalogue' itself. Each of them contains very detailed description of the design process so it's a great read.

Good clean design by Bierut, as usual.

I left a review of the hardcover a long time ago. I'm reviewing the paperback because I actually bought a 2nd copy of the book (one to keep untouched and the other to read several times). And now that I've gone through the book for the umpteenth time, I want to add more thoughts to my last review...

I'm begining to realize that the true magic behind the work of Tibor is that it's very personal. Tibor's work searches for some human quality inside us that it can appeal to. It relates to us as imperfect, informal human beings. Unlike most design today that is either self-indulgent or polished off and buttoned up, the work in this book seems to have a "come as you are" invitation to it. This was Tibor's gift. This was his major contribution to the work done in this book. As you surf through all 400+ pages you'll see that in the beginning his work was design "having something to sell". But suddenly his work detours and becomes design "having something to say."

The best part about this book is that it brings us inside the minds of all the people Tibor worked with, worked for (clients) and worked against. The eye opener is that their was a lot of pain that went into the production of this work. You learn that Tibor's passion became a blessing and curse for those he colloborated with. But you begin to learn that these "mistakes, misunderstandings and mis-comprehensions" are often an unexpected ingredient in producing fresh and interesting work.

I encourage this book to anyone who wants to see a new perspective on graphic design and the industry. But more importantly, it's a motivation for us to re-evaluate our own perspective on the industry.

I first heard of Tibor Kalman while browsing a copy of "Interview", just to learn that it was a tribute. Sometime later, I found a smiling bookcover looking at me. I bought it. I was waiting for the bus and started to read it... I could not put it down again. I read textes, subtitles, infos, even the small characters of the work reproduced. It was not enough. It made me regain the somehow lost faith in design, showing me how humour, money and a cause could be combined together with surprising results.
Do not be fooled: this book goes beyond the cult of the author's personality; it shows brief, concept and ways of thinking which are useful to everyone, not only designers and students.
Although I knew it from the beginning, in the end I had tears in my eyes, because this man was gone and could no longer make our world a better place.