Chip Kidd

If you asked Chip Kidd what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have told you, Chris Partridge. But instead he grew up to be a graphic design rock star.


Chip Kidd grew up in Pennsylvania and was presented with the tough decision at a young age, to pick art or music. According to Kidd because he didn't take drugs, art was the clear choice. In high school he was an AV geek but enjoyed doing the graphics for the school's news show. He went to Penn State and was accepted into the obscure new program of Graphic Design. Kidd learned graphic design before the field became dominated by the computers. He said this about his experience:

"As part of the last generation of pre-computer graphic design students, I am deeply grateful I was educated during this time. Not that I don't use the computer now- of course I do, and I give thanks to Apple on a daily basis. But I was schooled to solve problems with my hands as well as my head, and one influenced the other constantly, back and forth."


On that same subject I exclusively used a computer in my first graphic design class. We mostly used photoshop in that class, and I wish we had implemented some more hands on design aspects.


Kidd made some good friends in college, one of which is Barbara deWilde, who later became his colleague at Knopf. After college Kidd moved to the big city of New York to make a name for himself. He had a harder start then he had anticipated but one day met a women named Judith Loeser, an art director at Vintage Books. Kidd was given a freelance job for a self help book called "How to Work for a Jerk". His editors hated his sketches and he was ultimately rejected. But Judith liked them, showed them to Sara Eiseman, an art director at Knopf, and Eiseman offered Kidd a job as her assistant. The rest is history. Kidd has been designing book covers for Knopf for over 20 years.


All my information was taken from the book "Chip Kidd: Book One". I have to say that I loved reading and looking at this book. Kidd's work is smart, creative, and well executed. There were a few things that stuck with me, one of which is how much Kidd encouraged graphic designers to learn type setting. I plan do that in one of my projects this quarter. Another little thing I've been thinking about is how much our canvas influences our design. Kidd said that when he's stuck on a book cover, he sticks with this formula: Photo on top, text on the bottom. I wonder if his formula would change if books were shaped another way? I wonder how I would approach something different if I wasn't using an 8.5 x 11; what if it was a 20x 20?


The last thing that really stuck with me was that Chip Kidd said he doesn't want to have a style. He wants to really dive into the book he's designing and come up with ideas based on the book. Now obviously we will put ourselves into things we design, but I think its really important to have a balance of your own style and what the client wants. Even if you have to use 30 drop shadows and the font papyrus.

Find out more about Chip Kidd here.