Chip Kidd
Encyclopedia
Chip Kidd is an American
author
, editor
, and graphic designer
, best known for his book covers.
, Kidd grew up in the Reading suburb of Shillington
, strongly influenced by American popular culture. While a design student at Penn State
, an art instructor once gave the assignment to design a book cover for Museums and Women by John Updike
, also a Shillington native. The teacher panned Kidd's work in front of the class, suggesting that book design would not be a good career choice for him. Kidd later received professional assignments to design covers for Memories of the Ford Administration and other books by Updike.
. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year, Kidd has freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press
, HarperCollins
, Penguin/Putnam
, Scribner
and Columbia University Press
in addition to his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervises graphic novels at Pantheon
, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman
on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole
, Jack Cole and Plastic Man
: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer
, Bret Easton Ellis
, Haruki Murakami
, Dean Koontz
, Cormac McCarthy
, Frank Miller
, Michael Ondaatje
, Alex Ross
, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka
, David Sedaris
, Donna Tartt
, John Updike
and others. His design for Michael Crichton
's Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks
and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd design their books.
Kidd is currently working with writer Lisa Birnbach on True Prep, a follow-up to her 1980 book The Official Preppy Handbook.
Publishers Weekly
described his book jackets as "creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature." USA Today
also called him "the closest thing to a rock star" in graphic design today, while author James Ellroy
has called him “the world’s greatest book-jacket designer.”
Kidd has often downplayed the importance of cover designs, stating, "I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that." He is also known to be humorously self-deprecating
in regards to his work with statements such as "I piggy-backed my career on the backs of authors, not the other way around. The latest example of that is The Road
, by Cormac McCarthy
. I'm lucky to be attached to that. Cormac McCarthy is not lucky to have me doing his cover."
Collectors and librarians note that The Secret History
, which Mr. Kidd wrapped in a translucent acetate overlay, ultimately has not survived the test of time, as copies show that the corners and edges of the covers persistently curl up and do not maintain their pristine condition.
Kidd is as a fan of comic book
media, particularly Batman
, and has written and designed book covers for several DC Comics
publications, including The Complete History of Batman, Superman
, and Wonder Woman
, The Golden Age of DC Comics
: 365 Days, and the aforementioned Jack Cole and Plastic Man. He also designed Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross
and wrote an exclusive Batman/Superman
story illustrated by Ross for the book. Kidd once stated that the first cover he ever noticed was "no doubt for some sort of Batman comic I saw when I was about 3, enough said. Or maybe not enough said: the colors, the forms, the design. Batman himself is such a brilliant design solution." Veronique Vienne, who wrote an eponymous book about Kidd in 2006, described Kidd's Batman fandom as a "childhood obsession and lasting adult passion."
instructor. The book draws on Kidd's real-life experiences during his art studies at Penn State.
Kidd's second novel, The Learners, finds the protagonist of The Cheese Monkeys drawn into the infamous Milgram experiment
, thanks to an incidental newspaper ad assignment. The novel uses the experiment as an extended metaphor for advertising, wherein the "content" is masked and fed — sometimes unwillingly — to its consumers.
It was announced at New York Comic-Con
2011 that Kidd would be writing Batman: Death By Design, an original graphic novel
.
/alternative rock
band, writing and recording music under the name Artbreak. He takes the role of song writing, vocals, and percussion, and while the group began as hobby, Kidd has expressed interest in making a serious project out of it. , the group performs across the United States and has a tour schedule on their MySpace
. They plan to record their original songs for an album entitled Wonderground.
on the episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" The episode contained a segment that was heavily inspired by the Batman manga from the 1960's.
's Upper East Side. A biographical survey, Chip Kidd by Veronique Vienne (Yale University Press, 2003), was followed by Chip Kidd: Book One, Work: 1986–2006 (Rizzoli, 2005), curated and designed by Mark Melnick with text by Kidd.
The author is also a serious collector of Batman merchandise which fills his Manhattan apartment. In 2001, Kidd designed and wrote Batman: Collected which features his childhood photos and several pieces from his vintage Batman collection as photographed by Geoff Spear. In the 287-page book, he writes extensively of his nostalgic
memories and of Batman as a merchandising icon. Kidd also worked with fellow Batman collector Saul Ferris on another book of a more particular subject matter, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan
, which hit stores shelves in October 2008.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, editor
Literary editor
A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews. A literary editor may also help with editing books themselves, by providing services such as proof reading, copy-editing, and literary...
, and graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
, best known for his book covers.
Early life
Born in Reading, PennsylvaniaReading, Pennsylvania
Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,...
, Kidd grew up in the Reading suburb of Shillington
Shillington, Pennsylvania
Shillington is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States with a population of 5,059 at the 2000 census nestled amongst other suburbs outside of Reading...
, strongly influenced by American popular culture. While a design student at Penn State
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
, an art instructor once gave the assignment to design a book cover for Museums and Women by John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
, also a Shillington native. The teacher panned Kidd's work in front of the class, suggesting that book design would not be a good career choice for him. Kidd later received professional assignments to design covers for Memories of the Ford Administration and other books by Updike.
Cover design
Kidd is currently associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random HouseRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year, Kidd has freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
, HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, Penguin/Putnam
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, Scribner
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...
and Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press
Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
in addition to his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervises graphic novels at Pantheon
Pantheon Books
Pantheon Books is an American imprint with editorial independence that is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.The current editor-in-chief at Pantheon Books is Dan Frank.-Overview:...
, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole
Jack Cole (artist)
Jack Ralph Cole was an American comic book artist and Playboy magazine cartoonist best known for creating the comedic superhero Plastic Man....
, Jack Cole and Plastic Man
Plastic Man
Plastic Man is a fictional comic-book superhero originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 ....
: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer
Mark Beyer
Mark Beyer is a comic artist known for his bleak storylines, often featuring death, disfigurement, depression, and humiliation, which contrast with his childlike, geometric drawing style. Most of his stories are about the adventures of a codependent yet resentful couple named Amy and Jordan.His...
, Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
, Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...
, Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz
Dean Ray Koontz is a prolific American author best known for his novels which could be described broadly as suspense thrillers. He also frequently incorporates elements of horror, science fiction, mystery, and satire. A number of his books have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List, with...
, Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
, Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
, Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
, Alex Ross
Alex Ross
Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross is an American comic book painter, illustrator, and plotter. He is praised for his realistic, human depictions of classic comic book characters. Since the 1990s he has done work for Marvel Comics and DC Comics Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an...
, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka
was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...
, David Sedaris
David Sedaris
David Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....
, Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend . She won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003.-Early life:...
, John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
and others. His design for Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton , best known as Michael Crichton, was an American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
's Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd design their books.
Kidd is currently working with writer Lisa Birnbach on True Prep, a follow-up to her 1980 book The Official Preppy Handbook.
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
described his book jackets as "creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature." USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
also called him "the closest thing to a rock star" in graphic design today, while author James Ellroy
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
has called him “the world’s greatest book-jacket designer.”
Kidd has often downplayed the importance of cover designs, stating, "I'm very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can't let go. But it's about whether the book itself really connects with the public, and the cover is only a small part of that." He is also known to be humorously self-deprecating
Self-deprecation
Self-deprecation, or Self-depreciation, is the act of belittling or undervaluing oneself. It can be used in humor and tension release.-In comedy:...
in regards to his work with statements such as "I piggy-backed my career on the backs of authors, not the other way around. The latest example of that is The Road
The Road
The Road is a 2006 novel by the American author Cormac McCarthy.The Road may also refer to:* The Road , a 2001 Kazakhstani film* The Road , a 2009 film adaptation of the McCarthy novel...
, by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
. I'm lucky to be attached to that. Cormac McCarthy is not lucky to have me doing his cover."
Collectors and librarians note that The Secret History
The Secret History
The Secret History, the first novel by Mississippi-born writer Donna Tartt, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. A 75,000 print order was made for the first edition , and the book became a bestseller.Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics...
, which Mr. Kidd wrapped in a translucent acetate overlay, ultimately has not survived the test of time, as copies show that the corners and edges of the covers persistently curl up and do not maintain their pristine condition.
Kidd is as a fan of comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
media, particularly Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
, and has written and designed book covers for several DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
publications, including The Complete History of Batman, Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, and Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....
, The Golden Age of DC Comics
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
: 365 Days, and the aforementioned Jack Cole and Plastic Man. He also designed Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross
Alex Ross
Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross is an American comic book painter, illustrator, and plotter. He is praised for his realistic, human depictions of classic comic book characters. Since the 1990s he has done work for Marvel Comics and DC Comics Nelson Alexander "Alex" Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an...
and wrote an exclusive Batman/Superman
World's Finest
World's Finest may refer to:*A number of DC Comics related media, typically involving the teaming up of iconic superheroes Superman and Batman** World's Finest Comics** World's Finest Team** World's Finest Trinity...
story illustrated by Ross for the book. Kidd once stated that the first cover he ever noticed was "no doubt for some sort of Batman comic I saw when I was about 3, enough said. Or maybe not enough said: the colors, the forms, the design. Batman himself is such a brilliant design solution." Veronique Vienne, who wrote an eponymous book about Kidd in 2006, described Kidd's Batman fandom as a "childhood obsession and lasting adult passion."
Novels
His first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, (Simon and Schuster, 2001) is an academic satire and coming-of-age tale about state college art students who struggle to meet the demands of a sadistic graphic designGraphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
instructor. The book draws on Kidd's real-life experiences during his art studies at Penn State.
Kidd's second novel, The Learners, finds the protagonist of The Cheese Monkeys drawn into the infamous Milgram experiment
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that...
, thanks to an incidental newspaper ad assignment. The novel uses the experiment as an extended metaphor for advertising, wherein the "content" is masked and fed — sometimes unwillingly — to its consumers.
It was announced at New York Comic-Con
New York Comic-Con
The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television.-History:The first event was held in 2006 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center...
2011 that Kidd would be writing Batman: Death By Design, an original graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
.
Music
In early 2008, Kidd started a new waveNew Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
/alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band, writing and recording music under the name Artbreak. He takes the role of song writing, vocals, and percussion, and while the group began as hobby, Kidd has expressed interest in making a serious project out of it. , the group performs across the United States and has a tour schedule on their MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
. They plan to record their original songs for an album entitled Wonderground.
Animation
In 2010, Kidd collaborated with the writing staff of the animated series Batman: The Brave and the BoldBatman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain...
on the episode "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" The episode contained a segment that was heavily inspired by the Batman manga from the 1960's.
Personal life
Kidd lives on ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Upper East Side. A biographical survey, Chip Kidd by Veronique Vienne (Yale University Press, 2003), was followed by Chip Kidd: Book One, Work: 1986–2006 (Rizzoli, 2005), curated and designed by Mark Melnick with text by Kidd.
The author is also a serious collector of Batman merchandise which fills his Manhattan apartment. In 2001, Kidd designed and wrote Batman: Collected which features his childhood photos and several pieces from his vintage Batman collection as photographed by Geoff Spear. In the 287-page book, he writes extensively of his nostalgic
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
memories and of Batman as a merchandising icon. Kidd also worked with fellow Batman collector Saul Ferris on another book of a more particular subject matter, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan
Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan
Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan is a 2008 book published by Pantheon Books, subsidiary of Random House, in the United States. The book was designed by Chip Kidd with the assistance of photographer Geoff Spear...
, which hit stores shelves in October 2008.
Further reading
- Forward by Chip Kidd to Just my Type by Simon Garfield, Profile Books, 2010
External links
- Fawny: Kidd at Designthinkers (October 27, 2005)
- Mark Melnick
- National Post: "Chip Kidd" by Jeet Heer (September 12, 2003)
- Chip Kidd's TYPO Berlin 2005 lecture »There is a Style Gland That Turns Malignant in Nevada« as Video-Podcast Berlin, Germany
- Chip Kidd's TYPO Berlin 2006 lecture »You Could Win a Rabbit« as Video-Podcast Berlin, Germany
- Audio interview with Chip Kidd on public radio program The Sound of Young AmericaThe Sound of Young AmericaThe Sound of Young America is a public radio program and podcast based in Los Angeles, California and distributed by Public Radio International...
- Interview in Rain Taxi Review of Books