Mirko Ilic

Fist to Face

Dejan Krsic

• Publisher: Print
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781440323973
• eBook ISBN: 9781440324079
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Design General

Mirko Ilic has a reputation as a rebel, but his iconoclasm is matched with tremendous gifts as an illustrator, a designer, and an educator. Ilic is a visionary and a leading voice of visual culture across disciplines and continents.

This visual biography of one of the most prolific and distinguished designers of the last half century traces Ilic's formative years as a precocious youth in Yugoslavia during the Communist-bloc era; his early illustrations for comic books and magazines; and his eventual move to the United States, where he quickly achieved notoriety as the art director of Time magazine's international edition and The New York Times' op-ed pages. As a designer, Ilic has constantly pushed his craft to new limits, experimenting and reinventing himself at every turn.

Throughout his illustrious career, Ilic has collaborated with design luminaries like Steven Heller and Milton Glaser. He has designed album covers for Rage Against the Machine, created film titles for You've Got Mail, and written or designed a number of books, including Genius Moves, The Design of Dissent, The Anatomy of Design, and Stop Think Go Do.

He has taught advanced design classes at Cooper Union with Milton Glaser and now teaches illustration at the School of Visual Arts. His studio, Mirko Ilic Corp., has received awards from the Society of Publication Designers, the Art Directors Club, I.D., Print, and HOW.

Design Is a Good Idea

Atheneum Hotel, logo, 1993, commissioner: Pentagram, ad: Colin Forbes, Michael Gericke, d: Michael Gericke, illustration: Mirko Ilić

Atlas Print Solutions, logo, 2010

Palladin, visual identity, 1999

The Joule, hotel visual identity, 2006

5K Films Inc., logo, 2002

Swiss Army Card, logo, 2007, client: Paradoxy Products

Spread, restaurant/lounge logo, Spread, Inc., 2002, ad: Mirko Ilić, d: Heath Hinegardner, Mirko Ilić

Summit, visual identity, Summit/The Broadmoor, 2006, ad: Mirko Ilić, d: Clint Shaner, Mirko Ilić

The Big Red, logo, 2009, client: Charlie Palmer Group and the Joule, d: Mirko Ilić, Jee-eun Lee

30 for 30, logo, 2008, client: ESPN, ad: Walter Bernard, d: Mirko Ilić, unless stated differently: ad & d: Mirko Ilić

“Designers, in my opinion should have no style, except a general way of thinking. I’ve always tried to have no style. The idea must determine the form and not the opposite.”

—mirko ilić, “several sharp words at the expense of slovenian designers,” finance, ljubljana, june 7, 2000

what benny goodman said about swing can be said for Mirko Ilić’s work: “It is as difficult to explain as the Mona Lisa’s smile or the nutty hats women wear—but just as stimulating. It remains something you take five-thousand words to explain then leaves you wondering what it is.”

Mirko’s many design ideas could be—according to the famous advice of Bob Gill—transmitted via telephone and still inspire. As witnessed by Luka Mjeda, they often really did so. While Mirko was in Milan, work on Panorama, he still had to create covers for Danas in Zagreb. The team would agree over the phone, and Luka would do it in Zagreb. But, as Gill also knew well, the idea needed to be properly visualized as well.

Gill, an American, was an important figure in the development of the idea-based design approach. With Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes, he founded studio Fletcher/Forbes/Gill in London in 1960, out of which, a few years after Gill left, Pentagram was developed.

“Gill and his colleagues aspired to produce designs that were surprising and original graphic solutions to communication problems. This required the designer to let go of any preconceptions about how design is supposed to look and, clearly, if a designer has a strong personal style, then he is starting with the assumption that a design should look like one of his own designs…”01

Gill said: “Drawing [illustration] is like design, it’s a process. It’s a tool, not the goal. Design and illustration are ways of showing views. So if you do not have an opinion, why would you start the process? Ironically most people involved in design are adopting their value system based on their environment; from magazines such as Graphis. At the end, it results in everyone doing the same design—which I think is boring. So, if you are not interested in what is now considered to be a ‘good des...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Man of Good Fortune
• Studenski list and Pitanja
• Ink-Stained T-Shirt
• A Black and White World
• Novi Kvadrat—New Wave Before the New Wave
• Metal Hurlant
• Culture, Politics, and Scene
• A Start at Start Magazine
• Gastarbeiter
• Everybody Dance. Now!
• Street Images
• Sls Studio—Slow, Bad, Expensive
• Danas Magazine
• Before Leaving for New York
• Looking for America
• Self Portraits
• Mirko Ilić: The Eye.
• Time Magazine
• Media and War
• Op-Ed Pages
• Caustic iconoclast
• Photoshop and Digital Illustration
• Mirko Ilić Corp.
• In the Realm of Digital Rendering
• Sex and Lies
• The Policies and Politics of Design
• Illustration, the Method
• Designer as Author
• The Eye, Part II
• The Books
• Design Is a Good Idea
• Country Roads Take Me Home
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright