»  Carolyn's Blog

A handful of folks from the Charlotte graphic design community, as well as those who are associated with marketing in Charlotte participated in a caravan to Raleigh to hear Chip Kidd speak at an event hosted by the Raleigh chapter of AIGA – the professional association for design.

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Kidd grew up in the Reading suburb of Shillington, strongly influenced by American popular culture. While a design student at Penn State, an art instructor once gave the assignment to design a book cover for Museums and Women by John Updike, who is also a Shillington native. The teacher panned Kidd’s work in front of the class, suggesting that book design would not be a good career choice for him.

Kidd is currently associate art director at Knopf, an imprint of Random House. He first joined the Knopf design team in 1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant. Publishers Weekly described his book jackets as “creepy, striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as literature.” USA Today also called him “the closest thing to a rock star” in graphic design today, while author James Ellroy has called him “the world’s greatest book-jacket designer.”

The Charlotte, NC branding and marketing guys and gals who braved I-85 for the drive to Raleigh didn’t return disappointed. Chip Kidd is very funny as a speaker, and he provided plenty of examples of inspired design work and anecdotes.