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Okay, he didn’t quite make the final list (and we’re certainly of the mindset that being a finalist is honor enough), but Chip Kidd’s design adorns TIME magazine’s 2008 TIME 100 issue. Chip’s cover was chosen from an impressive group of designs by an impressive group of designers, and is featured on the May 12 issue celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world. Our only question is why couldn’t it be the TIME 206? Why’s everyone so obsessed with round numbers? Oh, I mean: Being a finalist is an honor all its own… The issue is at newsstands now.
LATEST JOURNAL ENTRY
God Is a Graphic Designer?
Okay, Dreamlets, I’ll admit that as far as I’m concerned the jury’s still out on the whole “higher power” thing, but when something like this happens it sure tips the scales in that direction.
Below you’ll find a couple of images of the front page of my copy of The New York Times, exactly as it arrived on my doorstop this morning. I honestly didn’t even notice it until I was on the subway to work. The photo is of the inauguration of the new Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev, with out-going president Vladimir Putin at his side.
Now, there’s been no small speculation that DM’s election is a sham and that he is merely a Putin-puppet. So, it truly boggles the mind that the paper could have been ripped this particular way, and that the story on page three underneath could have that headline.
RECENT CLIPPINGS
The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists
Okay, so, Chip is a finalist for the 2008 TIME 100, TIME magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in, well, the world. This is the ‘con’ portion of Chip’s mini-profile on the TIME 100 page:
As is often the case with replicable success, Kidd’s book-jacket dominance is provoking backlash. (Updike has called his stuff “monstrously ugly.") Soon, he’ll be the orthodoxy some new Kidd will rebel against.
Is it just me, or is that just as much a pro as it is a con? Either way, please go vote for Chip. Barack Obama, Bono, Steven Colbert, George Clooney, The Pope, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are pretty stiff competition, ya know?
[read “The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists” in its entirety…]
Birnbaum v. Chip Kidd
Chip and Robert Birnbaum chat for the fourth or fifth or eleventh time in The Morning News:
RB: […] How much of yourself is invested in The Learners so that you will be spending time out in the hustings doing publicity?
CK: A lot.
RB: You want to sell it as a movie?
CK: Um, sure.
RB: Do you want to make the movie?
CK: That’s a good question. Yeah. [laughs]
RB: You haven’t made any movies?
CK: No, that thing I just put on You Tube was my first go. What an auspicious beginning. The one nice thing about this book is that it got sold as an audio book, which you would think, “Oh, that’s a given.” But The Cheese Monkeys didn’t, and that I was very disappointed at. But then this firm, Blackstone Audio, got The Learners and I said, “That’s great, would you take a look at The Cheese Monkeys, please?” They did, and bought that also. They hired an actor named Bronson Pinchot to do it. He was on a sitcom in the late ’80s called Perfect Strangers. He played a Russian immigrant, cousin to Mark Linn-Baker. He read it, and he has become my new best friend. He’s really, really into it. He also said this would be a great little independent film—it wouldn’t be hard to make. “You should direct it. You write a like a director, bladdy blah.” The Cheese Monkeys has been in development hell for years.
[read “Birnbaum v. Chip Kidd” in its entirety…]
Three Artists walk in to a bar
Directly, this has nothing to do with Chip Kidd. But the tangential relationships are too much fun to pass up. Cartoonist Evan Shaner has answered the question, “What if Charles Schulz created the Watchmen?” Follow the link to read more and to see a larger, uncropped version of the image:
