On May 9th, 2013, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show interviewed David Sedaris, the author of “LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS” (Little, Brown and Company). Check out the video, it’s pretty funny!

Author James Ellroy joins Walter Kirn on BylinerTV for a conversation where nothing is restrained and the boundaries of polite conversation are obliterated.

Ellroy testifies to the vile and glorious corners of L.A., and shares his visions of history without refracting the present day. With all the confidence of a shotgun blast, he tears through the politically correct limits on discussion and breathes fire with each admission and opinion. From his roots in writing, crime, fame fascination and current events, it’s an interview that could be measured on the Richter scale.

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.

Design for change. Design for good. Design for a better world.

These are the premises that fuel DESIGN INDABA. Their goal is for a better world through design, creativity and innovation.

Chip Kidd spoke at their 2011 event and while in Barcelona he stumbled across a caf decorated with book covers that he had designed. He found this both strange… and rather great!

I thought this would be a good idea for a post, just posting some of the many book review videos that have been done for Chip Kidd’s Graphic Novel, BATMAN: DEATH BY DESIGN (DC Comics). The interesting thing about “video reviews” is that, since the format is so visual, the reviewers can also focus quite well on the amazing artwork of Dave Taylor. Besides the compelling storyline, the book’s other main interest is that the art is also a very enjoyable part of the book. So, this is really cool. Thanks to everybody who took the time to create these videos.

As a side note:

One of the videos (the 4th one) is an “Audio Only” Interview with Chip Kidd that was done BEFORE the book came out. So, in contrast to the other ones, which were obviously done by readers of the actual book, it’s kind of interesting. Hey, here they are… please enjoy.

Check Out this music video for ASYMMETRICAL GIRL by ARTBREAK. The Band features CHIP KIDD & MARS TRILLION with a special appearance by Chip’s niece, LAUREN KIDD on drums. Thanks to Tal Unreich (camera), Dan & Andre at dresscodeny.com (motion graphics). Directed by GARY NADEAU.

Here’s a video that is a part of the ongoing series created by Random House Books called, “Inside Random House”. These short features give all of us a small glimpse into the workings of the famous publishing house. This particular clip is titled, “Digital Product Innovation”. Here is their quote:

“The way we transform book content into digital experiences is rapidly evolving. Join some of our key in-house digital product experts as they give you an insight into how they approach their work, and highlight a few of our exciting new digital products. Tune in!”

Check out this cool video that is a great documentary about a reporter’s difficult search for the celebrated Japanese Book Author, Haruki Murakami. I just discovered this beautiful gem on YouTube the other night and I knew I had to post it because every fan of Murakami is going to enjoy watching it. In fact, if you have never heard of his books, then you should watch it, because afterwards… you will love him.

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.