Chip Kidd Insights Lecture

Chip Kidd is a writer and graphic designer who lives and works in New York City. Since 1986 his book jacket designs for Alfred A. Knopf have helped spawn a revolution in the art of American book packaging. His work has been profiled in such publications as Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, The New Republic, Time, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Out, and New York magazine. Kidd has written about graphic design and popular culture for McSweeney's, Vogue, Details, Arena, 2WICE, the New York Post, ID, and Print magazines. His books include Batman Collected (Bulfinch, 1996), Batman Animated (HarperCollins, fall 1998), The Cheese Monkeys (Scribner, 2001)—perhaps the first successful novel employing graphic design as an integral part of its subject—and Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz (Pantheon, 2001). As an editor of books of comics for Pantheon, Kidd has worked extensively with some of the most brilliant talents practicing today, including Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes, Kim Deitch, Charles Burns, Mark Beyer, Ben Katchor, and Alex Ross. His designs have been described as monstrously ugly (John Updike), apparently obvious (William Boyd), faithful flat-earth rendering (Don DeLillo), surprisingly elegant (A.S. Mehta), a distinguished parochial comic balding Episcopal priest (Allan Gurganus), two colors plus a sash (Martin Amis), and not a piece of hype. My book was lucky. (Robert Hughes). The monograph CHIP KIDD: BOOK ONE was published by Rizzoli International in 2005.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• chipkidd
• walkerartcenter
• design
• bookdesign

[N1ckyPoo]

I think Mr. Kidd was just playing to the crowd and being catty for humor purposes. Frank Quitely's art is absolutely gorgeous. All Star Superman was very introspective, the cover both humanizes Supes and shows he's incredible at the same time....a perfect image for the series in my opinion. Quitely's art is subtle, gestural, organic...the stories he illustrates are full fo life.....the comicbook industry is lucky to have him..

[B0vril]

@sm0kinbUdz Quite an aggressively desperate comment there. You resort to conjecture and straight up insults to defend.... What? Your aesthetic principles?? Compose yourself and comment sensibly; Stop trying to put others down in attempt to persuasive your self perceived importance of your own interests.

Chip Kidd comes off as a pretentious dork here, but your comment is puerile at best and does nothing to "defend" against Kidd's comments; which would be a worthless exercise.

[sm0kinbUdz]

I love it when talentless hacks get off on judging those with far superior abilities than their own. Guess what Mr(s?) Kidd... Noone outside of type face geeks and flamers knows or gives a rats' ass who you are while Jim Lee and Frank Quitely are known by millions. Quit acting like a jealous little bitch and enjoy your paycheck from the "mouth breathing" geeks at DC ya douche.

Also, this has got to be the ugliest, not to mention laziest, logo design I've ever seen. 

[trautstudio]

@CooperTFN he even says something about his boyfriend in the first few minutes of his talk. I think its crazy how negative you are about him / his work / etc without paying attention to his talk.

[trautstudio]

Chip Kidd is gay he is openly homosexual.

[simonwilchesc]

I like his books a lot, so sad he's acting like such a stereotype. I'll keep with the books' voice and try to forget this.

[electrojones]

@CooperTFN Please. He's a moderately talented little piss who has maybe two tricks he's run into the ground. In NY we've been rolling our eyes when non designers drop his name for the past couple of years. He's a sliiiightly known quantity that everyone trots out until the next thing comes along, which has already happened, so so long Kidd. PS: you cannot write. Your books are fucking terrible.

[electrojones]

What a complete asshole. I really hope he wasn't depending on getting any more work from DC. What a flaming homunculous..

[MayorHundred]

Wow. What a dickhole.

[wickermanburningowl]

Also it's not just that he 'didn't like' the artwork.He decided to do a presentation about it in front of many people,deliberately mocking a respected artist and the staff at DC simultaneously.