Working with Tibor Kalman was both astounding and confounding. His love of vernacular and hatred of anesthetic design taught me so much. He also had an ability to think until it hurt. Although I only worked with him for a short while before his passing I look back and think it was pivotal in making me who I am.
One of the most wonderful things about working for M&Co was the opportunity to work on clocks and watches for M&Co labs. We used any spare time between projects to create designs which we'd share with Tibor each week.
Chair Watch was a collaboration with the team at Vitra. I remember having several deep conversations about which chair and where it went on the face. This one is still sold at the Museum of Modern Art.
Florent postcards were also a mainstay of M&Co, they usually involved a macabre observation of sumptuous carnivorous food. Being a vegetarian I could sympathize. I proposed three sets of cards:
Florent Morellet ran The Florent on Gansevoort Street from 1985 to June 2008. Tibor had an arrangement with Florent, we got free-ish food in return for designing the Florent identity, and adjusting his T-Cell count on the menu display board.
And then there was the 'Fuck Committees' manifesto for Tibor's autobiography, Peverse Optimist. Tibor gave me the copy and asked me to lay it out on the grid that the Michael's designed (English & Bierut). I worked pretty hard to make it look nice because I really admired both of them
Then Tibor castigated me for being a 'fucking designer'– always getting in the way by making it swiss. So he asked me to put a Doughnut behind the copy, make the copy yellow, almost illegible, then add some mistakes. He relished my squirming, he wanted to unbuild my design intentions, to make it fun. That was Tibor.