OK, Just to be clear, Chip Kidd did NOT design the cover for this book… but we wanted to share this fun video of the new BOOK TRAILER for “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc” (published by Little, Brown and Company) because David Sedaris is a good friend. Plus, the video (and the book) is totally hilarious! Enjoy. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to share this on Facebook or Twitter, ha!

Other David Sedaris Books with Covers Designed by Chip Kidd:

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 some exciting news for Batman Fans!! DC Comics has plans to bring back the extremely awesome BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE comic books series. You can look for issue #1 around September 4th, 2013. The fun thing that we get to report today is that Chip Kidd will be writing one of the stories for this large 48-page book. They also have plans to publish 6 books in this series. OH MY GOD! Please check out the Official Press Release:

BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE #1
Written by CHIP KIDD, NEAL ADAMS, JOE QUINONES, MARIS WICKS, JOHN ARCUDI and HOWARD MACKIE
Art by MICHAEL CHO, NEAL ADAMS, JOE QUINONES, SEAN MURPHY and CHRIS SAMNEE
Cover by MARC SILVESTRI
1:25 Variant cover by TBD
1:200 B&W Variant cover by MARC SILVESTRI
"We Can Be Heroes" Blank variant cover also available.
On sale SEPTEMBER 4 48 pg, 1 of 6, B&W, $4.99 US RATED T
The legendary, Eisner Award-winning series BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE returns in a brand-new six-issue miniseries featuring tales of The Dark Knight by some of comics' greatest writers and artists! This first issue kicks off with stories by Chip Kidd and Michael Cho, Neal Adams, Joe Quinones and Maris Wicks, John Arcudi and Sean Murphy, and Howard Mackie and Chris Samnee!

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.

Brit Mandelo, who is one of the contributing writers over at TOR.COM, just got done posting a very excellent, and well thought out, book review for Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART SPEECH Book (William Morrow/Harper Collins)! Of course this book was designed by Chip Kidd so we could not be happier! Hey, if you have been reading Chip Kidd’s website for any length of time then you know how obsessed we are with this new book, ha! So, it’s totally great that it’s starting to get some major attention… that is ALWAYS nice and always appreciated!

Thank you TOR.COM and also, a special thanks to Brit, great job!

WOW! We could not be more pleased about this! Over at the SAMARITAN BLOG they posted a wonderful book review for the new MAKE GOOD ART Book, the one about Neil Gaiman’s famous commencement speech he gave last year. The new book, out now & published by William Morrow (an imprint of Harper Collins) , was created from the words of speech given by Neil Gaiman and designed by Chip Kidd.

The review is pretty short in length but that doesn’t take away from it being a serious book review. I mean, the Reviewer does convey their feelings about the book really well. Also, the photos of the cover are totally great! Why am I excited about some photos of a book? Well, the lighting of the photo shows you how some of the lettering on the cover is embossed & it gives you a better understanding of “how it looks”. In all the photos shared online these are the best at doing just that. So, Thank You Samaritan Blog!

Hey, please check out the book review by clicking HERE!

With the release of the latest film adaptation of the literary American classic, THE GREAT GATSBY (F. Scott Fitzgerald) the book has become more popular than ever. In fact, at the time of writing this post it is listed at Amazon as the #6 bestselling book.

Over at the ever-resourceful National Education Association Website , the Contributor, Phil Nast has compiled a wonderful list of online reading guides and other resources for Teachers. Well, anyone who loves this book will enjoy their links, it’s fun stuff!

The list is extensive, but very precise. They give you Reading Guides, Essays, Indexes, and even a Study Guide on the “Jazz Age” which takes you to that era with photos, video clips, etc… it’s like you jumped into a time machine, ha!

There are also some amazing links to a few one-hour radio podcast episodes that cover the book & author. They even have a Google Maps page that lists all the real-life locations as read in the book. Did someone scream, “Road Trip!”?

So, if you’re a Teacher looking to inspire students, or just a major fan of this great American novel, then please be sure to visit the NEA site today, just CLICK HERE!

Great novels deserve to be celebrated every now and then. In this post we’re sharing a podcast that does just that with one of our most beloved literary classics, The Great Gatsby. The radio series, Studio 360′s AMERICAN ICONS, explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY and finds out how this compact novel became the great American story of our age.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells Kurt Andersen why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We'll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and we'll hear from Andrew Lauren about his film G, which sets Gatsby among the hip-hop moguls. And Azar Nafisi describes the power of teaching the book to university students in Tehran. Readings come courtesy of Scott Shepherd, an actor who sometimes performs the entire book from memory.

So, if you love the book, then please… listen to this:

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)