John Martz

You Could Win a Rabbit

I went with Patricia to see book designer, author, and Batman aficionado Chip Kidd speak at the International Festival of Authors last night.

I had seen him speak once before at an event organized by The Beguiling, and I think he must’ve practised since then.  He was wildly entertaining the first time I saw him, but he has since mastered to perfection the art of being a cross between a campy and wry New York intellectual, and a book-designing stand-up comedian.

He’s exactly the kind of speaker I like—one who engages the audience with pure concentrated charisma, and gets you excited about design.  He clearly enjoys what he does and does it well—even his most banal-looking pieces are deceptively intelligent.  Chip answered for me one of the most important questions I had about his work, and that was that he tries to read every book that he designs the covers for, and allows his work to represent the words and themes in some way.  Friends in the publishing industry assure me that this is not always the case with designers, so it’s comforting to know that Chip is one who values meaning and context.  We are taught in design school to ask ourselves, “What are you trying to say?”, but too often we side-step around the question in order to get the job done.

He is also fearless in his dismissal of troublesome clients (we learn that it’s no accident that the two L’s in Daniel Liebskind’s name, on the architect’s new book, are stabbing him in the eyes).

I went to the lecture because I knew that I’d be treated to a witty look at the process of designing book covers for major literary clients, but having seen him before I was not expecting to come away with any real insights other than “Aren’t clients picky!? Yuk Yuk!”.

But one thing I picked up on that Chip didn’t intentionally emphasize, but he mentioned enough times (directly and indirectly) for it to impact me, was his attention to “the human element”.  I saw that his most powerful and effective pieces were those that abandoned the mechanical and the sterile in favour of things more personal and warm—designs that looked touched by human hands are infinitely more inviting and familiar than something farted out by a computer.  Instead of set type, he’ll use hand-lettering.  Instead of scanning artwork, he’ll light it and take a photograph (prime example, his book _Peanuts: The Art of Charles Schulz_).

I encourage anyone interested in design to hear him speak if you get the chance.