Here’s a fun picture we sort of randomly came across on Facebook. This photo was taken by the LIBERTY BAY BOOKS Bookstore (Poulsbo, WA) at the recent 2013 Book Expo America event. It shows Chip Kidd signing a Promotional Poster for his new book coming out in October titled, “Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design”. They plan to hang the poster in their store… that’s cool!

Once we get some clearance on sharing this poster on the website, we will post it. Please stay tuned for that!

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.

Just a quick post to share some fun literary news. Yesterday, at the Google Search Engine webpage, they changed their regular header graphic to a special one that celebrated the 85th birthday of the Book Author, Maurice Sendak. Of course he is the Writer of the classic Children’s Book, “Where The Wild Things Are”, published in 1963. The header had some interactive devices built-in and it was very animated… really, it was AWESOME!!

Happy Birthday Maurice Sendak!

Over at the TED Radio Hour Podcast (NPR Radio) they recently interviewed Designer Chip Kidd on “How Do Book Covers Create Their Own Stories”. It’s mostly a recap of his TED Speech, which has been pretty popular, but they also talk about the importance of Graphic Design in the service of selling books and supporting the Author’s ideas. We have embedded the podcast down below, right here, for you to enjoy. So, please give that a quick listen.

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Also, Chip’s interview was a part of a larger series of interviews with other Designers, Writers and Authors all about writing & overall book design.. The entire program is titled, “Framing The Story”, so to hear the complete episode please visit the Official NPR website, just CLICK HERE!

One more thing, we want to invite anyone who has not seen Chip Kidd’s TED Speech to check it out too. I mean, it is sort of what this interview was based on and if you have never seen it then it will make more sense. And, as always, please feel free to share this post on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network you might be a member of. Thank you!

Here’s a fun video we knew we had to share. Chip Kidd was at the recent 2013 BookExpo America where he ran into Kristen, a roving reporter at the event. She’s the super-cute girl on the right, ha! She was also kind enough to stop & interview Chip about his next new book, “GO: A Kidd’s Guide To Graphic Design”. The book will be published by Workman Publishing Group & you can look for it to hit bookstores around October. Kristen had some really great questions so please be sure to check it out!

Here’s a quick post to share this lovely photo we just stole from our friend Amanda Palmer. She shot this last night at the book signing Event for Neil Gaiman & Chip Kidd that was at the Oberon in Cambridge, Maine. This was where they discussed their latest project, the MAKE GOOD ART Speech Book, which is out now, published by William Morrow.

Neil Gaiman talked about his future plans for the new SANDMAN Series to be published by Vertigo (DC Comics) later this year and he also talked his next brand-new book, that will probably be a major bestseller, and it’s titled, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane: a Novel” (To be published by William Morrow - Look for it around June 18th, 2013).

Also, Chip Kidd got to mention his new art book to be released later this year that will teach kids about design. It’s called, “GO: A Kidd’s Guide To Graphic Design” and you can look for that book around October 8th, 2013 and it will be published by the Workman Publishing Company.

Yesterday, as an ongoing part of their series of “Inside Random House” promotional videos, Random House Inc. posted a new feature story titled, “The Art of Cover Design” . Its main focus is about the creation and art direction of Book Jackets… and how they relate to both sales and the book author’s artistic vision.

The video features members of the Random House creative team who are very involved with the design of book covers, listed here in order of appearance:

Marysarah Quinn - Senior VP & Creative Director of Crown Publishing Group
Robbin Schiff - Executive Art Director of Random House Publishing Group
Chip Kidd - Associate Art Director at Knopf & Editor-At-Large of Graphic Novels at Pantheon
Peter Mendelsund - Associate Art Director at Knopf & Art Director at Pantheon
Christopher Brand - Art Director for Crown, Hogarth, and Broadway

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)

How about this for some inspiration?! Check out this totally amazing short animated film created by two Artists, Sam Taylor and Bjorn Aschim. It’s titled, 'Everything I Can See From Here', a tale of miscommunication. It tells the story of two friends and their dog messing about with a soccer ball when an unintended visitor wants to join the fun.

Anyone working in any field of Graphic Design today can totally relate to this info-graphic, ha!