Typography Homework 2/2

Journal 2

Chip Kidd is a writer, editor, and designer. He is well known for his book covers. He has designed over a thousand covers and many of them are very well known. Chip is the associate art director of Knopf. Publishers Weeklydescribed his book jackets as "creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature." Chip also does a lot of comic book art. Chip is important because he is a really innovative designer and he keeps things different, never using the same style for a book. I think this next statement by Chip is ridiculously smart and perceptive:

How is a book cover different from an album or magazine cover?

Hmm. Well, the album cover, for all intents and purposes, it's weird, because it's like the walking dead. They still exist and they still get made, but it's almost like "why?" With everybody buying music online, it's literally been reduced to the size of a postage stamp. For at least 10 years now, the music video has completely replaced the album cover as the key piece of visual iconography connected with a certain album. Magazine covers, by in large, they're just dying to tell you everything. They can't tell you enough. All the smattering all over the front of the magazine. They're just shrieking at you everything inside. Where a book cover, if it's done right, is going to just suggest a sensibility, it's going to be a lot more coy and a lot more discrete.

And here's another quote–which explains that if books are around, so is Chip Kidd.

Will books become obsolete with digital technology?

I love this question because it gives me the chance to reiterate for the umpteenth time: No, the book is not going anywhere. The book is already the most concise piece of technology to deliver what it delivers. When the last "Harry Potter" book came out, kids weren't downloading it. They were lining up at bookstores. People like something they can pop into their bag. People didn't carry their Sgt. Pepper album all over the place—they would go home and listen to it.

John Gall is also a book designer. He has worked with CD albums as well. John is important because he does things differently, and changes the intentions of some things. His design solutions have great plasticity––range, the creation of the illusion of depth, elasticity. Each of his covers are a surprise, and for some covers, they have unexpected elements.

A good point by John Gall about hardback and paperback:

SB: How are the differences among them manifested in your design approach?

Gall: There is definitely more freedom in hardcover design. Hardcover sales are generally review driven, so the cover doesn’t have to come on as strong and, I think, less people buy them on impulse because of their price. They’ll read a review and look for the book. The paperback does not have the fortune of being timed to the review attention, so the cover—we’re talking front list here—has to say something like “Remember me? You were waiting for me to come out in paperback? Remember? I’m the one the New York Times really liked, you know, the one about the guy with narcolepsy who likes the girl in the plaid skirt. …”

Looking at both examples of the covers that each designer has done, I like Chip Kidd's work a little better. I think some of what he said was really insightful, and it gives hope to designers that not everything they do will be digitized and never be made into a hard copy. I always like having a hard copy of my work, and not keeping everything on the computer or put onto a website. It feels less realistic that way. So in a sense, Kidd gives me hope that design work won't be completely lost. John Gall had a good point about how good design really sells a lot of books. I know that when I shop, if a cover is more interesting I'm more inclined to buy that one than a cover that looks like crap. Both seem like highly influential and memorable and timeless book cover designers.