Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Master Graphic Designer @ChipKidd on @tedtalks discusses "Designing books is no laughing matter. (OK, it is.)"

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is a pretty cool site where famous, accomplished and fascinating people talk about their experiences. The broad range of topics would surely interest everyone and anyone. This is a talk that I found about designing books by the famous Chip Kidd who is famous for designing many books including one of my favorites: Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz by Chip Kidd which is just an amazing collection of Peanuts comics but the design is just unique and fun to look at. Enjoy the talk!  We think that learning as much as you can about design is important for making photobooks.  Each page can be designed as you like it. 

The following information is from the TED site:
Chip Kidd doesn’t judge books by their cover, he creates covers that embody the book -- and he does it with a wicked sense of humor. In one of the funniest talks from TED2012, he shows the art and deep thought of his cover designs.

Why you should listen to him:
You know a Chip Kidd book when you see it -- precisely because it's unexpected, non-formulaic, and perfectly right for the text within. As a graphic designer for Alfred A. Knopf since 1986, Kidd has designed shelves full of books, including classics you can picture in a snap: Jurassic Park, Naked by David Sedaris, All the Pretty Horses … His monograph, Chip Kidd: Book One, contains work spanning two decades. As editor of comics for Pantheon, Kidd has commissioned work from graphic novelists like Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes and Ben Katchor. He's a novelist as well, author of The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners.


Quotes by Chip Kidd:

“Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability. But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness — a little bit of humanity.”

“I am all for the iPad, but trust me — smelling it will get you nowhere.”

“A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku of the story.”
He doesn't tweet much but here's one of his more interesting tweets from a couple years ago.