Chip Kidd is renowned and revered as a maverick graphic designer. Specifically, Kidd’s book jacket designs for such major New York publishers as Alfred A. Knopf are among the most significant and innovative of our time. This richly illustrated book—the first critical selection of Kidd’s design work—looks closely at this contemporary visual pioneer.
Véronique Vienne presents a full and nuanced view of Kidd, discussing how he has developed celebrity status as a designer, design critic, lecturer, and editor. She also relates how Kidd is greatly influenced by popular culture, noting his vast collection of Batman memorabilia. Vienne concludes by examining Kidd’s editorial involvement in books on cartoonists as well as his own first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, published in 2001 to critical acclaim.
Chip Kidd reveals the fascinating life and career of a revolutionary graphic designer with a winning public persona, whose ambitions now also lean toward editing and writing. The book will appeal to anyone involved in design and popular culture as well as admirers of Kidd’s extraordinary creative spirit.
Véronique Vienne is the author of Something to Be Desired: Essays on Design (2001), The Art of Imperfection (1999), and The Art of Doing Nothing (1998) and is a frequent contributor to Graphis and Metropolis magazines. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
CHIP KIDD 2003 112 pp. 7 1/2 x 9 Paper ISBN 0-300-09952-5 $19.95
