Design
Mirko Ilić in ‘We the Designers’
Mirko Ilić has joined the exhibition “We the Designers” at the AIGA National Design Center in New York City with a glow-in-the-dark poster that features a skull merging with a nucleus. The text beneath it calls for safer alternatives to nuclear power to generate electricity.
Curated by Thomas Starr, the exhibition features designs that respond to issues facing the Obama administration. Ilić partnered with designer Daniel Young to create the “Radioactive waste…” poster.
Ilić, who was named one of the most influential designers of the past 50 years by Graphic Design USA magazine in February, started his design career in Yugoslavia. A graduate of the School of Applied Arts in Zagreb, his first comic was published in 1976 in Studenski list. Over the next 10 years, he designed cover artwork for many of the country’s most popular bands and for the weekly news magazine Danas. Collaborating with photographer Luka Mjeda, Ilić combined photography and illustration to create bold, graphic interpretations of abstract economic and political concepts.
In 1986 Ilić moved to New York and, within about a week of his arrival, he went to TIME magazine with his portfolio – and left with an illustration job. That same confidence carried him to Milton Glaser’s doorstep a few days later. The two would become friends, and Ilić would begin to illustrate for New York’s premier publications, including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as serving as art director of the international edition of TIME magazine the New York Times Op-Ed pages.
According to Ilić, his greatest success was the June 18, 1990 cover of TIME magazine. With a pared-down palette featuring just three colors (red, white, and black) and no text apart from the title of the magazine, the cover is visually intense. Two men face each other with angry, furrowed brows, illustrating conflict between French and English speaking Canadians.
Having produced work that ranges from hand-drawn illustrations to etchings and engravings to computer-generated designs, Ilić experiments with different media and avoids developing a restricting style. Despite these stylistic and technical variations, all of Ilić’s work is driven by graphic intensity and a dedication to clear communication.
The visual and technological breadth of Ilić’s output has been catalogued in Fist to Face, a visual biography detailing his life and creative work. The monograph, written by Dejan Kršić with a preface by Milton Glaser and a forward by Steve Hellmer, was translated into English and published by Print magazine last fall.
Ilić’s work is on view in “We the Designers” until April 5, 2013. Visit his blog for regular updates.
Written by: Elaine Ritchel (@elaineritchel)
