Chip Kidd Interview…
Probably best known for his semi-fictional novel: The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd, is often considered the single most sought after book jacket designer working today. Chip works as a writer in addition to being a graphic designer in New York for Knopf Publishers. Having designed over 1,500 book jackets, he has received numerous awards from both design and photography centers for his work on such classic book covers as Jurassic Park, American Rhapsody and The Border Trilogy.
Those of us in design who follow Chip’s work and writings know him to be an imaginative innovator who pushes designers and design students to spend time thinking and arriving at creative solutions first. He is also known for having quite a bit of personality, and freely speaking his mind, as you will see:
TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?
CHIP:
There are these three men, construction workers, building a skyscraper. One day they sit down to their lunch, side by side-on a girder, thirty stories above the city.
TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?
CHIP:
Before the first one opens his lunchbox, he says to the other two: “I am so SICK of liverwurst. If my wife packed another goddam liverwurst sandwhich in here, I swear I will leap to my death!” So he opens it up, and sure enough: Liverwurst. So he stands and dives head-first to the sidewalk. Ker-splap.
TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?
CHIP:
Then the second one says: “I am SO DAMN TIRED of ham and swiss! If my wife stuck me with one more ham and swiss sandwich I'm jumping too!” And wouldn't ya know: Ham and swiss. Geronimo, he lands with a messy, wet, explosion..
TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?
CHIP:
So the third guy says (to no one in particular at this point): “Hmmm. I have HAD IT with peanut butter and Jelly. If my wife gave me peanut butter and Jelly AGAIN I'm joining them!” And of course: pb & j. And so he jumps too. Not a pretty sight.
TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?
CHIP:
And so, at the joint triple-funeral, the wife of the first man says: “Oh, it's so sad. If only I'd known he hated liverwurst so much, I would have given him something different.” And the wife of the second man wipes away a tear and says: “Yes, I know how you feel. I never would have given my husband ham and swiss again if I'd known it would lead to this.” And then the wife of the third man pipes up, and says, quizzically:
TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?
CHIP:
“I just don't understand it. He always packed his own lunch.”.
Thanks very much to Chip for responding. He has just launched at new site that is in its early stages of displaying his work, you can see it at: chipkidd.com.
Michael Bierut tomorrow…
posted by The Design Professor, Tobias Brauer @ 10:57 AM
6 Comments:
After I received this response from Chip I asked him for more of an explanation on what this meant or referred to and he told me.
You’ll have to try and figure it out on your own.
Tobias
Alright, I’ll tell you what it means b/c it’s way to hard to figure it out on your own, so many people are asking and I’m guessing some may think he is just being rude, when he is definitely not:
So, a while ago, Chip taught graphic design at SVA. In one of his design classes the assignment was to come into class with a joke and then over the next month or so, make a graphic design piece that somehow explained the joke.
This joke was one that a student brought in and the student made a piece that had a lunch pail that opened and as you went through each part opening different things, more of the joke was revealed or told.
Chip told me that the student who made this piece received an “A” because it was such a great solution.
My guess is that when he thinks about things like “good work” and “successful design” (the kind of stuff I was asking in my questions) this piece comes to mind for him as a great example of what graphic design can be.
See! I told you he wasn’t being rude.
Tobias
Thanks, Tobias. No, I was not trying to be rude (because when I am trying to be rude there is absolutely no disputing it).
But I want to add that the joke itself is a parable about mindless conformity and fatally self-imposed peer pressure, which is certainly not inappropriate to consider when creating graphic design. Even I've jumped off a few girders in my time, just because a designer I've admired did the same. And I've rarely landed on my feet.
CK
Get idea about graphics design.
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