Debbie Millman is the president of the design division at Sterling Brands. She is also President Emeritus of AIGA, a contributing editor to Print Magazine, and chair of the School of Visual Arts’ master’s program in Branding. In 2005, she began hosting the podcast show, DESIGN MATTERS.

In a previous "Design Matters" broadcast, Debbie interviewed the World-Class Art Director Peter Mendelsund. He is an associate art director at Knopf, as well as an art director at Pantheon Books. he is also a guiding force behind some of today’s most recognizable book covers: the Stieg Larsson books, the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace and Laurie Sheck’s A Monster’s Notes, to name just a few. Also, he has a new book about his life in graphic design coming out in April, 2014 (link down below, published by PowerHouse Books) titled, “COVER“.

To HEAR MORE TALKS with today’s most innovative thinkers and designers just click here, DESIGN MATTERS.

Here is their discussion down below, enjoy:

I don’t know why but I have become sort of addicted to these info graphic charts that help you find a book to read, ha! I mean, my reading list is usually pretty HUGE and I never really need this info. But every now and then I use one to mix things up. Adding some diversity to your reading habit is good thing. Give it a try…. and Good Luck!

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover - but that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying. An original and visually engaging book cover/jacket can help make the difference between a flop and a smash, and over the years more than a few designers have taken the creative and mysterious process to levels of supreme beauty and imagination. Peter Mendelsund is that kind of designer and COVER is the story of his love affair with books.

Renowned and award-winning designer of many best-selling books, Peter Mendelsund has enjoyed years as a much-sought-after designer and art director. Amongst the many recognizable covers he has created are those for the American edition of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and the following books of the Millennium trilogy; collections of the works of James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Dostoevsky, de Beauvoir, Bernhard, and Camus; the contemporary works of Peter Carey, Martin Amis, Tom McCarthy, Ben Marcus, Rick Bragg, and James Gleick; and many more. All have greatly benefited from the care and touch Mendelsund gave their jackets.

The entire story of a book cover - from the moment a book is initially acquired to when it finally appears on bookstores’ shelves is explained and illustrated in COVER. This brand-new book features Peter Mendelsund’s completed book jackets along with ephemera from his previously unseen creative processes, including jacket sketches, interior art and illustrations, editorial illustration, and scores of rejected drafts. These images are also punctuated by his reflections on his work and his process, as well as by texts from writers with whom he has worked and designed for, including bestselling crime writers, Pulitzer and Booker Prize-winning fiction and non-fiction authors, well-known scientists, actors, and politicians.

COVER is a compendium of beautiful design and a beautiful design object itself; a profile and celebration of one of the publishing world’s most talented and prolific contemporary creators, and a brilliant showcase of his deft touch for balanced and innovative design. Also, as sort of a disclaimer, we should note that he works with Chip Kidd at Random House Publishing. So, we’re kind of biased a little bit here! But honestly, this book is gonna be GREAT and it’s already on most book lover’s (and design students) reading lists. The book will be released in Hardcover on April 8th, 2014 and will be published by PowerHouse Books.

Remember, pre-order the book from AMAZON and save big bucks!

Just a quick note to let Chip Kidd Book Cover Design Fans know that we just updated our Galley Page where we added a ton of new jackets… actually, they appear on Gallery Page Two… just CLICK HERE!

Hey, if you’re reading this post and visiting this website then there’s a pretty good chance that you either love reading books or enjoy Graphic Design. Well, we’re happy to announce that we have recently posted a ton of brand-new photos of work done by the Designer, Chip Kidd. Of course all the new stuff is mostly all book covers but they’re fun to see. So, please visit our GALLERY PAGE by clicking RIGHT HERE, or you can always just click the “Gallery” TAB Button up above, just below the header. Enjoy.

Oh yeah, hey wait! We almost forgot to ask… PLEASE remember to share this site with all your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media you might use. Our goal is to attract a lot of traffic to this site and we would appreciate ANY help you can give.Thanks!

Chip Kidd, after being involved with a few projects with DC Comics’ characters, bought the original artwork from All-Star Superman #10, Batman & Robin #2 and a story from the 1960′s Japanese Batman Bat-Manga comics (with the art of Jiro Kuwata) and then had them specially custom-bound with glass covers. You can see them in the Comic Archive video down below and the end result is pretty interesting. Wow, what a treasure!

One of the functions of this website is to showcase the work of Book Cover Designer Chip Kidd. So, we created a GALLERY PAGE to do just that. If you go there (just click the “Gallery” TAB Button up above), then you need to scroll down because all the new ones we recently posted are on Page Two. Just click the “Next Page” button at the bottom of Page One. Am I making this all to confusing? Sorry, ha ha!

HEY! This is More Easy To Do, Just Please CLICK HERE!

Last March (2013) Chip Kidd was invited to appear at the Tokyo International Literary Festival in Japan. He was interviewed by the Japanese website, NIPPON. Their tagline is “Your Doorway To Japan”, and that’s pretty cool! The interview can be read by clicking HERE!

While there, Chip Kidd participated in a lecture Series where he explained his thoughts on “Book Cover Design”, his early love of Japanese Pop Culture, Designing Tezuka Osamu's Buddha for Vertical, Unearthing the Japanese Batman Bat-Manga, and also his thoughts on the Author Murakami Haruki and the Future of Book Design.

The overall experience of being back in Japan was sort of overwhelming. I mean, it’s such a beautiful place that you just never NEVER want to leave and it’s always sad to do so. Japan is completely beautiful.

This post is a quick shout-out to announce that we have added a ton of new photos of Chip Kidd-Designed Book Covers over in our GALLERY PAGE. Yeah, there were so many that we had to split them up between Page ONE and TWO. There’s a bunch of new James Ellroy, Haruki Murakami, J. D. McClatchy and even a John LeCarre!

So, please be sure to visit them both! The link TAB to the Gallery is always at the top of this page, just below the header. Or, if you’re lazy ( Ha Ha! ), then please just CLICK HERE. You will be glad you did!

(The photo up above is just a small example of the book covers added)

Chip Kidd, Associate Art Director at Knopf Books, Peter Mendelsund, Art Director for Pantheon Press, and Stephen Doyle, Creative Director, Doyle Partners; Design Contributor, New York Times and Wired, discuss whether cutting edge visual design can save the print industry. The talk is moderated by Darhil Crooks, Creative Director for the Atlantic, and way down below is the video-taped footage of the event.

Date: Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Location: New York Historical Society, NYC

The first Speaker is Chip Kidd and he starts out talking a little bit about working with Neil Gaiman on Neil’s new book, MAKE GOOD ART : Neil Gaiman’s Speech Book. Which, by the way, is coming out on Wednesday, May 15th. Yes, that’s tomorrow! Very quickly, Chip Kidd gives a preview of what the book will look like, discusses some of the design ideas and concepts, and then (in a very sneaky way) he shamelessly plugs his own book that is coming out in October of 2013. We’re talking about his “Teaching Graphic Art to Kids” Book which is titled, “GO! A KIDD’S GUIDE TO GRAPHIC DESIGN“.

Then, next-up is Peter Mendelsund who quickly shares an amazing assortment of some of his work. Like Chip, he mainly designs book covers. But his graphic art has an interesting twist. He designs jackets for new books that are expected to be bestsellers AND he creates new covers for old classics, what they call the “back list”, and it’s all really great stuff like: Franz Kafka, Dante, Plato, Simone De Beauyoir, James Joyce, etc…

Peter also makes a shameless plug for his brand-new Design Book coming out in the Spring of 2014 titled, “COVER” by Peter Mendelsund. It looks pretty cool!

Then, the last guest (last, but NOT least) is Stephen Doyle who shares an amazing art-concept movie he created called CIPHER. This was a project he worked on with some Students and the end result is pretty interesting. He also discusses recent trends in publishing & print media.