GetOut Magazine

Acclaimed book-jacket designer and author brings substance to literary style

By KELLY WILSON
GET OUT

Chip Kidd has designed nearly 900 book jackets — including covers for illustrious authors such as Anne Rice, Michael Crichton and David Sedaris — but there's one writer he has yet to cross off his wish list.

“The dream one would be J.D. Salinger, who is technically still alive anyway,” Kidd says of the famously reclusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

The 41-year-old Kidd, an author himself, has been designing book covers for New York-based publishing house Alfred A. Knopf since 1986. His work also has been featured in Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times. USA Today boasted that he was ‘‘the closest thing to a rock star'' in graphic design.

Still, the best praise comes from his fans, Kidd says.

‘‘The best compliment I get is when somebody says to me ‘I saw this book in the bookstore and I thought the cover was really great, and then I went over to it and it turns out that you had done it and it didn't look like you did it,' '' he says. ‘‘I don't like to be thought of as having a certain style. When somebody responds to something I've done in a good way simply because it works for them and not because they think I did it, that's the biggest compliment.''

Kidd draws design inspiration from the manuscripts.

‘‘After that you have to figure out how you're going to approach the work visually, and that's also informed by whatever the content is,'' he says, noting that it takes him from 10 weeks to 10 months to complete a design. ‘‘There's many different kinds of circumstances — everything from getting inspired to whether the author has their own ideas and you have to pursue that and everything in between.''

Currently on a book tour, Kidd will discuss and sign copies of “Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006,” a retrospective that showcases his book covers, comic work and graphic novels. In addition to the tour, Kidd says he's working on a screenplay for his 2002 book, “The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters.” He's also writing a follow-up novel, “The Learners.”

‘‘It's about the same character but it takes place four years after the end of the first one,'' he says. ‘‘I wanted it to stand alone as its own story so if you didn't read the first one, you don't have to in order to understand what's going on.''

When asked whether he prefers design or writing, Kidd doesn't hesitate.
‘‘Design,'' he says. “With a novel, there are all these kinds of pressures that are brought to it. You're more serious and will be judged more harshly. It's supposed to be deeper and more meaningful. It's harder to do. It's harder to commit to and sign off on. ... With design, it's really been very rewarding creatively.''

Chip Kidd
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Drive, Tempe
Cost: Free
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