NPR Radio’s Talk of the Nation recently interviewed Neil Gaiman about his latest Graduation Gift book titled, “Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART Speech”. The new book, designed by Chip Kidd and published by Harper Collins, is set to be released on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013.

Click here to listen to the NPR Radio Interview with Neil Gaiman:

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Chip Kidd, Associate Art Director at Knopf Books, Peter Mendelsund, Art Director for Pantheon Press, and Stephen Doyle, Creative Director, Doyle Partners; Design Contributor, New York Times and Wired, discuss whether cutting edge visual design can save the print industry. The talk is moderated by Darhil Crooks, Creative Director for the Atlantic, and way down below is the video-taped footage of the event.

Date: Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Location: New York Historical Society, NYC

The first Speaker is Chip Kidd and he starts out talking a little bit about working with Neil Gaiman on Neil’s new book, MAKE GOOD ART : Neil Gaiman’s Speech Book. Which, by the way, is coming out on Wednesday, May 15th. Yes, that’s tomorrow! Very quickly, Chip Kidd gives a preview of what the book will look like, discusses some of the design ideas and concepts, and then (in a very sneaky way) he shamelessly plugs his own book that is coming out in October of 2013. We’re talking about his “Teaching Graphic Art to Kids” Book which is titled, “GO! A KIDD’S GUIDE TO GRAPHIC DESIGN“.

Then, next-up is Peter Mendelsund who quickly shares an amazing assortment of some of his work. Like Chip, he mainly designs book covers. But his graphic art has an interesting twist. He designs jackets for new books that are expected to be bestsellers AND he creates new covers for old classics, what they call the “back list”, and it’s all really great stuff like: Franz Kafka, Dante, Plato, Simone De Beauyoir, James Joyce, etc…

Peter also makes a shameless plug for his brand-new Design Book coming out in the Spring of 2014 titled, “COVER” by Peter Mendelsund. It looks pretty cool!

Then, the last guest (last, but NOT least) is Stephen Doyle who shares an amazing art-concept movie he created called CIPHER. This was a project he worked on with some Students and the end result is pretty interesting. He also discusses recent trends in publishing & print media.

Last year, around February, Chip Kidd was in Texas to speak at a special lecture given at the Dallas Museum of Art. So, to promote the event he got the chance to talk with the crazy guys over at FANBOY RADIO. ( We mean “crazy” in a good way, they’re awesome!)

The cool thing is that you can tell that the people doing the interview either, did some amazing research, or they’re just honestly huge fans because their questions were really really clever. I mean, they discuss Graphic Design, Book Covers, Comic Books, Batman, and a few of Chip Kidd’s Books like – The Cheese Monkeys, The Learners, Batman: Death By Design, and much more.

OK, I know this podcast interview is “a year old”, but it’s actually still very timely today and it shares some really good insight into design and other issues. So, please enjoy… oh yeah, and please share it with everybody you know

THANK YOU FANBOY RADIO!

CLICK HERE TO HEAR IT LIVE:

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Cartoonist and MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship winner Ben Katchor was recently interviewed by Gil Roth in a episode of “The Virtual Memories Show” Podcast. The main focus was Ben Katchor’s brand-new graphic novel recently published by Pantheon Books in 2013 titled, HAND-DRYING IN AMERICA AND OTHER STORIES, which collects his monthly comic page from Metropolis magazine. During this special episode, Ben even “performs” several of his comics. Plus, he gives us all some really great insight into his creative process. Also, as a side-note, we should mention that this book cover was designed by Chip Kidd.

We have embedded the podcast down below, but for even MORE information we suggest a visit to VIRTUAL MEMORIES.

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Ben Katchor
Hand Drying in America and Other Stories
Pantheon Books / Random House
ISBN 978-0-307-90690-8
160 Pages

As sort of a tribute to the great American Historian & Random House Author, Gore Vidal, we would like to present this full-documentary that PBS TV Series, American Experience, did on him titled, “The Education of Gore Vidal”. It runs about an hour & twenty four minutes, so please, just sit back and enjoy.

Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-four novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and the critically lauded memoir, Palimpsest (of which, Chip Kidd designed the cover, you can view it on Page 2 of our COVER GALLERY, Link Button up above just below the header). Also, Gore Vidal's United States (Essays 1952-92) won the 1993 National Book Award.

R.I.P. Gore Vidal 1925 – 2012.

This post is not only for sharing the news about a reallt great book coming out, titled “THE DANIEL CLOWES READER: A Critical Edition of GHOST WORLD And Other Stories, With Essays, Interviews, and Annotations” (Fantagraphics). Whew! Now that’s a title, ha! but this book is already getting great buzz and the other reason for the post is that the Publisher was very generous in supplying a very large preview of the book, which you can read down below. Also, you can pre-order the book RIGHT HERE and save some money too.

The book was edited by Ken Parille. It has 360-pages, full-color, and measures about 7.25″ x 10.25″ (softcover) and will retail for around $24.99. (ISBN # 978-1-60699-589-1). Look for it to hit bookstores around July, 2013.

This landmark collection features ten of Daniel Clowes’s most influential graphic narratives, along with interviews about his career and creative process, and twelve thought-provoking essays by contemporary scholars and critics. Oh yeah, here’s the preview:

Just the other day, on April 9th, 2013, the Book Jacket Designer and Author Chip Kidd was interviewed on the WLRN – TOPICAL CURRENTS Radio Show in Miami by Literary Contributor Ariel Gonzalez. The main focus of this special podcast was the origin and creation of Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor’s Graphic Novel, BATMAN: DEATH BY DESIGN (DC Comics). Mr. Gonzalez had some very excellent questions and everything went really well, whew!

So, for your listening pleasure, we have posted it down below. Please keep in mind that there is a short interview with another guest before Kidd. This was Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States. We suggest listening to the entire podcast because Mr. Shapiro’s discussion is very informative. But, if you would like to skip ahead to just Chip Kidd’s interview then please go to about the 23:20 mark.

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In this archived podcast from WRITERS AND COMPANY Eleanor Wachtel shares her 2006 conversation with Robert Hughes, the Australian art critic and historian. He spoke with Wachtel about his memoir, “Things I Didn't Know, A Memoir”. Sadly, Robert Hughes died in August 2012, at the age of 74.

We would also like to mention that the book cover up above was designed by Chip Kidd. You can see a few other book covers Chip Kidd designed for this author on our GALLERY page.

Oh yeah, here’s a link to the podcast down below. It’s pretty interesting to hear the Author’s view on his book, “Things I Didn’t Know”.

ROBERT HUGHES INTERVIEW – CLICK HERE!

Over at the OTHER PEOPLE PODCAST With Brad Listi they recently posted Episode # 157 which turns into a very interesting interview with Ayana Mathis. Yes, I bet you know who she is. Ayana Mathis is the Author of THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE (Knopf). The new book just came out last December and is still going strong. It’s been reviewed by almost every major news outlet out there and you might have heard about it because this novel became the second book chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her new OPRAH BOOK CLUB 2.0. We also need to mention that Chip Kidd did not design the cover. Sometimes, when we feature books on this website that Kidd didn’t design, there is some slight confusion. So, we want everybody to know that a very talented Graphic Designer named KELLY BLAIR (gifted/beautiful) designed the wonderful book jacket you see here and she did an amazing job.

Whoops, OK sorry to ramble on, ha! The main focus of this post is to share the link for the OTHER PEOPLE Podcast where Brad Listi interviews Ayana Mathis about many things like: Being a Writer, What the success of her first debut novel is like, What was it like to meet THE Oprah Winfrey, and so on. In fact, the story of meeting Oprah is really fun! So, please check it out by clicking RIGHT HERE.

Oh yeah, the book is out right now. You can find it at your favorite Bookstore or, if you’re too busy, just click the Amazon link down below. Thanks.

Chip Kidd was featured in an episode of ARTS IN CONTEXT titled, “Paint, Design, Find, Reassemble”. Chip talks about the role of Book Designers and answers some questions about the process of creating. This PBS TV Program’s main focus is on both Fine Art and Graphic Design. We have embedded the video down below for you to enjoy… for a limited time. Chip Kidd pops in at about the 6:07 mark, but we suggest just watching the whole thing because it’s really very interesting.