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Tibor Kalman: A Personal Tribute

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Tibor Kalman (July 6, 1949 – May 2, 1999) was an American graphic designer from Budapest, Hungary.  He was the executive-in-chief of, Benetton funded, Colors Magazine: A Magazine about the rest of the World and co-founder of M&Co (a graphic and product design firm).

courtesy of AIGA
courtesy of AIGA

Colors (currently based in Italy) was “the first magazine for the global village,” Tibor announced, “aimed at an audience of flexible minds, young people between fourteen and twenty, or curious people of any age.”  It was also the outlet for Tibor’s political activism. In his most audacious issue devoted to racism, a feature titled “How to Change Your Race” examined cosmetic means of altering hair, lips, noses, eyes, and, of course, skin color to achieve some kind of platonic ideal.  Another feature in the same issue, “What If…” was a collection of full-page manipulated photographs showing famous people racially transformed: Queen Elizabeth and Arnold Schwarzenegger as black; Pope John Paul II as Asian; Spike Lee as white; and Michael Jackson given a Nordic cast.  “Race is not the real issue here,” Kalman noted. “Power and sex are the dominant forces in the world.

I feel that around the world there were young people who were progressive, and closer in spirit to each other than to their parents or cultures.  This is the audience I wanted to reach with COLORS.  It had to be about an incredibly broad range of subjects that were of interest to us all, breakfast, religion, sports, and so on.  That is why cut down six thousand trees to print this magazine.

It's a Baby Freedom of Speech Cease-Fear Monoculture Star City Get A Job

 

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I still remember the time when I picked up my first copy, “Teenagers” 6 years ago at a magazine store at The Annex.  I was 25 years old (call me late bloomer).

I ruffled through the pages and saw photos and stories of people from all over the world, from all walks of life… Each issue picks up a topic (Freedom of Speech, Shit, Star City, The Sea, Racial/Social Slurs, Genitalia, Architecture…everything.  It’s fucking brilliant) and then discusses how different parts of the world and its people perceives/interacts with that topic.

Issue #76 - Teenagers Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.47.26 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.48.12 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.48.21 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.47.57 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.48.30 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.47.35 AM Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.48.38 AM

 

Tibor Kalman Quotes:
“Your children will smash your understanding, knowledge, and reality.  You will be better off.  Then they will leave.  You will miss them forever.”

“Consumer culture is contradiction in terms.”

“Some people… cling to the idea that the photograph is an inherently real or honest image and such is always on a different plane from an obviously subjective form of visual communication such as painting.”

“What is said determines on who listens and who understands.  Graphic design is a language, but graphic designers are so busy worrying about the nuances – accents, punctuations and so on – that they spend little time thinking about what the words add up to.  I’m interested in using our communication skills to change the way things are.”

In a way, computers are helpful, because more and more they are giving individuals the power to fuck things up.

We’re all different and we’re all the same.”

Everything is an Experiment.”

———————–

My family didn’t approve of many of my ways (from film school to what I choose to do with my body), but interestingly enough when I started making art again, my mother, along with grandmother, were my biggest fans.  I would just shrug it off.  Every time they yapped about my “wayward lifestyle,” I would point out my paintings on their wall.  That usually shuts them up.   Actually, my family and I, despite loving them with all my heart: never really got along that well.  Our relationship got better so long as we don’t see each other everyday.  My mother and I joke about our own shortcomings now so that’s a good sign.  She also tries to bribe me with food to come visit, which I take full advantage of everytime I can 😉
She also helped with grammar & spelling correction with this entry.  I listened to everything except for “remove swear words” part – it’s just how I talk.

They had a point though – for the last several years I got a little busy fucking up my life.  

I wept and sank in depression for a while.
I asked my mother why we bothered leaving the Philippines when we could’ve had it differently; we had a shot at owning and operating a fishery in an underpopulated and fairly remote rural area but my family wanted “a better life” for me.  I was 14 at the time so I had no awareness nor care.  I was a little busy dealing with puberty, but during my time in the emotional blackhole: that sounded like paradise.
I just wanted a small piece of land with a simple Nipa Hut, maybe do some farming, make art in nature, get a guy and sex him lots.
I mostly just wanted to abandon this mess that everyone likes to call a “civilization.” 

What was so wrong with a simple life?  

For the most part, I started making art (and blogging) again to heal myself.  At first, I produced it for me because it made me happy and I had hoped to spread it out and make a living and out of something I love doing…but as I moved forward, I started coming into a realization that it’s impacting some people on a deeper level – then they would hold on to my every word and I panicked, freaked out, and went on (still am on semi) stealth mode.
That was a responsibility I was NOT ready for.
I’ve been called a lot of names and people have formed images of who I am based on momentary impressions or style…but that’s society. Nobody’s beyond it either.

I found that aesthetics can be a really good creative playground for experimenting with social perception: being brown (purish bred Filipina with mestiza features), a woman/girl, “looking innocent,” having short/half-shaved head/tattoos/spacers came into play a lot.
Though at the base of everything with my purest intentions: I was really just making things that make me happy and I like incorporating it into my body…’cause why not, right?  Someday, I too, shall pass.
The perceptions that come with it…well, it’s other people’s response to what I choose to express.  I’m not in control of that. 

You can just look at it this way: in the grander scheme of things, I’m really just another babbling moron.  We’re all at capacity to Create.  #ImSpecialJustLikeEverybodyElse
b8d9dc4e5b7ca9ed389cab39e783967c

I used to live a fairly “luxurious” life in a “fancy” downtown condo in financial district.  I was in my mid 20’s and I was making the most money I ever had in my entire life…but I was miserable.  There’s nothing wrong with that kind of life in itself and I’ve hung out with people who lived like that and were cool.  It’s when you live a life that is something you only follow out of fear, not out of joy, because it’s what you’ve been taught is when it could really fuck you up.
I denied everything that I was and filled my void with a life that was really much ado about nothing.
I had to lose everything to gain back feeling little sparkly things from deep within me again: a good “friend” who was living in his car because his family disowned him when they found out he was gay – that I let stay in my place, emptied my bank accounts and maxed my cards (I called the cops ’cause I wanted to talk to him, but had no intentions of pressing charges.  In as much as it sucked, I understand why he did what he did.  It’s all just seemingly a game sometimes and in this instance, the loser just happened to be me.  I didn’t mind so much as it hurt since I regarded him as a dear fairy brother), I grew apart from my “friends” – who, I realized, just liked being around me for superficial reasons, I continued to ignore my father whom I’ve estranged for over a decade, cut off my mother/stopped going to family reunions etc.
I was at my brink.  I almost went into self-destruct but then I got bored of being emo and decided to do something better instead.

When I was in high school, I would just hang out with random people.
I abandoned this part of me out of the mentality that I “needed to grow up”…but then I came to a realization that nobody really grows up.  We are all children in Spirit.  So I started hanging out with random people again.

It was cool.  I jumped around various scenes – from small & intimate venues to big, organized raves/parties and sometimes random people from the streets or have chats with random people in places I go to.  I also did some glass art & archway mural at a Mexican restaurant out in the western part of the city and I pretty much just talked to their guests, performers, kitchen workers etc.
I got real with a number of people who were fresh off the boat from different parts of the world and some Toronto locals as well: from artists to founders of tech companies to homeless people.
They came in all sorts and, for the most part, each person helped expand my mind.  

It was also during around this time that I started getting in tune with my heritage.  Sometimes we have to go far and “get lost” to finally find the treasures we all hold within ourselves.

It was at this stage that I finally embraced my sexuality and accepted that I’m probably not the best choice of partner for a traditional monogamy.  An open-relationship just seems more sensible for me (NO, this doesn’t mean I would do whoever comes my way, dimwit).  After everything I have come to learn and have seen, I just don’t feel like I would fit in that way of living anymore.  Everything you experience in your life becomes an integral part of who you are and, for each passing moments, you come out a bit different.
Creativity is a way of Life (if all else fails, get botox.  Goodluck.  Kidding.  But if you really wanna get botox, hats off to you).
I incurred a lot of hate/criticisms from other people and even people I personally knew (I think it’s called “Slut Shaming“).  It took some time before I finally started accepting that part of me and I knew that I was cool with it when I found myself joking that “Imma ho!!!”  My mother had a field day.  Trust.  
I already kinda did it with one guy. We parted ways ’cause the chemistry faded. Granted, he got a little beeotchy when I started introducing it. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. You live and you learn.
It’s human nature to fear the unknown, that sometimes we would just prefer to point the other direction than to question ourselves.  This is also why I think it’s perfectly healthy to just admit your own fears so we can accept who we are better (I’m scared of big dogs from some childhood trauma and I’m still scared of the dark.  I still sleep with a night light.  #NoFucksGiven).

Doing what I did, as a woman, by myself, came with certain risks, but I never actually ran into any real dangers.
It just took a lot of self-questioning on my behalf because everything I did were against morals & values that were heavily-embedded in me from a fairly patriarchal, classist, and colonial mentality kind of upbringing: I was consistently getting shit on for wearing shorts, told to stay home so I don’t get too dark (and made to put on whitening cream when I was a kid), told to act and try to look like other girls who look more “normal,” taught to be ashamed of my accent and try to mimic that of white people’s (or any race as long as they were born and raised in America or Canada – fucking anything but a Pelepeno aksent), condemned and diminished as a “puta” for being out late at night, and got beat for stupid shit like listening to music with cuss words or breaking/spilling stuff. Screen Shot 2016-04-24 at 10.17.24 PM  (*cough*cough*Logic*cough*CriticalThinking*cough*cough*)
Though I can’t fully blame my parents since they moved around following work and they were young (mom: 16/dad: 19 upon my spurting) so as far as behavioural norms go, they would just go with whatever the perceived “normal” would be, for them, in any given social cultural blanket that they were in.  They needed to feel like they “fit in” to feel better about the constant state of culture shock and needed to be seen as “normal” and “happy” – sometimes, just so they can hustle and get a job and shit.  It was probably stressful for them, on
so many levels.  They grew up in an environment where anything “negative” is stigmatized and shamed (or treated with – arguably also just as harmful & debilitating – patronizing/pitiful/excessively doting manner), so pieces of who they are that got oppressed and shunned by society, starting from an early point in their lives, were taken out on me: physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I was essentially their frustration-punching bag.  It fucking sucked.
BUT at the same time, if things didn’t happen the way they did, then the part of me that’s always curious and delighted about Life in itself would not have come out and I wouldn’t have understood my family as I do now just as I probably would not have had the yearning to seek out people, society, and different sorts of funny things out there and how the world rotates and works in the way that it does.  I got super curious…and I feel like I’m just always gonna value conversations and experiences that will expand my mind. We are All a part of it. If we have any yearning to live our lives to the fullest of our capacities (whatever and however it may be), then we’ll also have to accept the fact that we’re not beyond what’s fucked up and what’s wrong with the world.  
I’ve personally received the shittier end of the stick (all puns intended) at many points in my life.  It’s the way of the World.
Don’t get me wrong: there are times when people do need to be put in their place, and rightfully so – including myself (it’s all in context), but I’m not perfect: I’ve pulled out several asshole cards at inappropriate moments myself.  Learning how to be a nice & loving asshole is a lifelong thing.
I repeat: You live and you learn.

I think the most nerve-wracking bit in my jumping around was when I was walking around aimlessly downtown, trippin’ balls after a concert and then some big dude in an SUV pulls up and invites me to an after-party because he liked my hair.  I was freaking out for a while ’cause the place was locked and dark and I’m 5’8″ no-physical-strength-no-muscles-not-fit-at-all-whatsoever body frame…but everybody turned out so frickin’ nice!!!  I had a few interesting conversations with some dude who was straight outta Iraq, some real estate agent from Brampton, and a bunch of raver chicks.  The inviter pulled out some Chris Brown dance moves too so that was cool.

I guess for me, it was more of, I knew there was more to life out there than my then, very sheltered, way of living, so out I went.  Sometimes, we have to dive in the hot mess to uncover the better part of ourselves.

For example, I recently tattooed myself and I had a design planned, but I sat beside a really old Filipina woman, who reminded me of my grandmother, and had a sense of nurturing nature.  It already came to me, when I woke up that day, to ditch the design I was gonna get originally, but I wasn’t sure if I should do it.
I asked the lady, who was waiting for her sister who bought the food, to, “Pick a number: 1 or 2?”
She picked 2.  I assigned that to: “Wing it.”
Screen Shot 2016-04-26 at 6.48.12 PM

It turned out alright.  I think it could use more work (maybe a darker red, and a darker pink, thicker lines…and I’m probably gonna wanna continue it on my leg or body.  We’ll see how it goes).

And that’s the thing with me, is that, if you ever meet me or get to know me and I ask you some random shit like a number or colour, just fucking pick one.  That usually means I can’t make up my mind and…what is meant to happen will happen – sometimes I hear my heart’s voice through somebody else’s reality (be it in agreement or disagreement).

Having said that, I have, unfortunately, developed chickenshit tendencies when it comes to getting close to people.  Either way, my family moved around a lot when I was growing up (several places in Manila, then Jakarta, then back to Manila in a diff area, then TO…I found out yesterday via a dude I inked, that the dispersion of a people in several areas is apparently called, “Diaspora“) so I never really had a proper “crew” or anything like that.  I don’t really get how that works.  I have literally ran away shrieking at some points and it’s rubbed some people off the wrong way.  It’s kind of pathetic, but things happen in their own time so I figure that’ll probably just heal with inevitable life events or some shit.  

There’s no such thing as “normal” anyway, so we’re, technically, all fucking crazy.
#GodIsAJoker

Everything exists as One and We are All connected, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t value our individuality: it takes all sorts to make a World.  That’s probably the most mischievously bright and joyful joke that God likes to put on us (douche).  Even then, we are, too, forever changing and growing.
There is nothing permanent in life and even life itself is temporary: everyone and everything must pass.  In any case, the people you hold dear to your heart that pass away from this world will always live within you, regardless of how painful their passing must’ve been 💔 and even though you’ll always miss them. 💔

Death is seemingly a reality that most people would prefer not to accept, but Death, to me, is the biggest reason to listen to your heart and, despite the hardships, to always remember & cherish the importance of celebrating Life (there’s worse things than death).

beautiful ❤
Mexico: Dia de Muertos – they visit the departed and sometimes take on a humorous approach to remembering/celebrating their lives…in festive and bright/colourful decor!  🙂

What I particularly love about this magazine is that it’s not all about “positive thinking.”  While I understand the value and essence of positivity, Life in itself is not without its darkness and downsides.  You know how the saying goes, right?  You have to trek your darkness to see the light.  Without allowing yourself to immerse in the pain, turmoil, and chaos that comes with existence, then you won’t be able to appreciate the illumination of the light.  Having said that, compared to what I’ve seen: I’ve been very, very, very lucky.  Actually, compared to what I’ve come across, I’ve had it ridiculously easy.

There’s plenty of works and performances in the world that have been reinterpreted and fucked with, that sometimes something completely innocent to one person may be plagued with malice or meaninglessness for another.  It’s a culture clash and when conflicting views merge, there will always be (internal and external) chaos involved.
I think, in that sense, by exploring as many topics as possible, this magazine shows people how to overcome adversities within contrasting layers of perception.  It shows us different realities so we can see ourselves and our surroundings from another point of view – as well as raise our social awareness and consciousness – while being entertained, informed, and well-directed (A++ design) … and that’s why I would personally give this publication a perfect 10.

colors.4
Colors was not Benetton’s (publisher) darker alter ego, but it did serve to ‘contextualize,’ as Kalman defined it, (their) advertising imagery.

You can tell that it was made with passion just in as much as it is all-encompassing; that’s probably one of the most inspiring things that I come across in my life.  ‘Cause like, where does it come from, right?  I know centuries of fucked up-ness probably handed it down to us via our collective histories, and our individuality is shaped by our personal histories…but how did it start?  Where did it start? …thinking about that kind of mystery exhilarates me.
❤ ❤ ❤  

981d051ae129539ad20be5eda3e44c2b Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 11.15.50 AM

I have to come learn that some people all too often fail to take their own stories seriously (or it gets plagued with malice)… and this is why works like these play an integral role in society: it propagates social impacts, inspires revolutions (of the Spirit, individual, and collective), pushes us to think critically and question ourselves.  Most importantly: It aids in unearthing people’s spiritual gems.
We all have that.  We were all born with it.  We just forget.

Colors Magazine helped awaken pieces of me that died for a good chunk of my life.  It helped me see my wounds from different angles and then I finally came to a realization that Life is beautiful…and when I did, I gave fucking up my life staying hungry and staying foolish my best shot.
I still fantasize about slapping annoying morons with an abaniko sometimes, but even so: I’m actually pretty glad to be here.

Sometimes I forget this myself, but every day is a Blessing.

Of the two names that changed design in the ’80s and ’90s—Mac and Tibor—one changed the way we work, the other the way we think. The former is a tool, the latter was our conscience.
fuck Steve Jobs.
(I use a mac…and I have words from his Stanford Speech tattooed on my left wrist)

tiborKalman


Viva la Vie  

Check out an interview with Tibor Kalman from Wired Magazine circa 1996 here

Read more about Tibor Kalman in AIGA here

Read Tibor Kalman’s Wikipedia entry here

Check out Colors Magazine’s site here
And their Flickr here
And their Twitter here

And their Facebook here
And their Vimeo here
And their Youtube here

Abaniko - hand-held fan originating from the Philippines. I'm brown on the outside, Filipino to the core, and multi-colored in the middle.
Abaniko – hand-held fan originating from the Philippines.  Good for hot weather and slapping annoying morons. #culture


Disclaimer: I have a sense of patriotism, NOT nationalism.
Read about the difference here 

A part of me wishes that all this is gonna make sense someday (why did God lead me the way I was lead?).  If not, I’ll be kinda okay with that too. At least if I die tomorrow, I know that I lived it up to the best of my capacity until today (eh would prefer not to die tomorrow tho).
Until then…

Fucking up my life: still in progress.  

PS.
“Human behavior can be studied, but not escaped: especially your own.”
– Stanley Milgram (The Experimenter, 2015 – directed by Michael Almereyda)

#OnlyHuman 

PPS.
“The world is not imperfect, or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people – eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly.”
– Siddhartha, 1922 – written by Herman Hesse

#ItsAllAJoke 

#SmokeDope



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