Tibor Kalman Quotations

I'm always trying to turn things upside down and see if they look any better.

I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That's what we really pay attention to anyway. We don't talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing.

No matter what your cultural sophistication or what language you speak, everyone can understand images.

If someone is going to permit me to make a publication that is politically and culturally progressive and not tell me to put their favorite movie stars on the cover, if I get to do what I want in an honest way - as I did in the beginning at 'Colors' - then I'm going to do it.

Let's face it: we live at a time when government is less and less powerful, less and less effective, and the agent of social change, at least for the immediate future, is the corporation.

I use contrary-ism in every part of my life.

I like being a 10-year-old kid who's in charge.

Edits are very important to me - they're the way in which I work on everything.

I'm not as good a writer as I'd like to be; therefore, I like to use images to tell stories.

Pictures are so good at giving people information that they're not looking for.

We live in a society and a culture and an economic model that tries to make everything look right.

Good designers are no longer satisfied in taking the manuscript from someone and making it look nice. One of the things that I've tried to do is move from being a designer to a content provider.

I believe that this whole question of some photography being true and some untrue is a non-question. Photography is not objective; it never was objective.

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

Consumer culture is contradiction in terms

To me, nothing is more vibrant than having the power to do something but not having the experience of knowing what's right and what's wrong.

Your children will smash your understanding, knowledge and reality. You will be better off. Then they will leave. You'll miss them forever.

We don't talk about planes flying. We talk about them crashing.

I'm not against beauty, it just sounds boring to me.

Perspective is a moment in time that cannot be fully appreciated until that moment has passed.

What is said determines who listens and who understands. Graphic design is a language, but graphic designers are so busy worrying about the nuances - accents, punctuation 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.

If you don't have an idea, all you have is style.

Think like an artist. Dress like an insurance salesman.

The perfect state of creative bliss is having power (you are 50) and knowing nothing (you are 9). This assures an interesting and successful outcome.

Design is just language and the real issue is what you use that language to do.

The difference between good design and great design is INTELLIGENCE

You'll never go wrong when you work with someone smarter than you.

When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.