Chip KIDD

Chip Kidd and Debbie Millman on "Design Matters"

Pre Interview:

It seems like the reason she didn't get her job in her initial interview was based on her willingness to comply to someone else's every need, rather than practicing the design that she wanted to do. It links itself relatively to the principle of having your own voice as a designer, which separates you from everyone else who will do "any kind of design" just to get a job.

Chip Kidd Interview:

Obviously he has a good sense of humor, a dirty one, but a good one. Milgram experiments are something I learned about in Psych 104 which is funny.

Do designer's need to be a little bit insane?

Any interesting creative person has a quark or something. But the quarks need to be balanced, have a happy medium so you can appeal to all types of people.

I really like his take on designing book covers for things you actually enjoy. And to Kidd, there is a difference between designing a book cover for a novel that you don't think is very good versus designing a book cover for a book that may influence people to think in a specific way, "like and asshole" or one instance he uses. That again comes back to the design/cause idea. Obviously Chip Kidd is a great designer, and with his abilities he can make anything look good and interesting. But when it comes to good design for a bad cause, you need to be careful and keep certain priorities straight. Because good design can take a bad cause a very long way.

To me this interview is slightly disappointing because a lot of it has to do with his music and his love for these Milgram experiments. Since I am doing this journal entry later, in the midst of our book jacket designing project, I thought I was going to get a lot more influence and ideas from this interview. Mind you I find it amazing that he has time to manage designing, writing, recording music and handle a relationship. But I was hoping for more of a focus on designing.

Questions:

What is GD? Graphic Design isn't a major, it isn't a job, it's a relationship. This is something that I am full committed to. And it's not a commitment to grades, or money, but a commitment to making my work the best that it can be, no exceptions. I am sitting in the design lab on Wednesday of Spring Break working on book covers and listening to Chip Kidd. If that's not dedication, I don't know what is.

What is Typography: It is intertwined in GD. I am a personal fan of integrating typography into my graphic designs. I want it to expand into all aspects of my work. Title body text, images, I like type and I want my type to be beautiful everywhere.

Responsibilities: To not turn in shit. I don't ever want to look at something I have done and say, I just turned it in to get a grade. I don't want to be associated with crappy design. If I see that it is shit, I will discard it, end of story. I want to love everything I do, regardless of the time it takes.

VisCOM Valuables: Realize the sacrifices I need to make when it comes down to it. If I need to blow something off to better some work of mine, then fine, sack up and do it, don't make excuses. This goes back to the turning in shit topic. Making sacrifices for design creates opportunities to create better design, not shit.