Chip Kidd ’86

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS Chip Kidd ’86 To Chip Kidd for world-renowned conceptual problem solving,” Kidd said. non-fiction, and poetry. A prolific lecturer, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York cover designs that have caused “I’ve never fancied myself a fine artist, he has spoken at universities from Harvard to the GGG Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. He has millions of readers to take a book off facing a blank canvas. I like having a to the Rhode Island School of Design, been selected six times as a participant the shelf. problem to solve.” and his humorous 2012 TED Talk on design in The 100 Show, an annual competition has racked up more than 1.2 million views. held by the American Center for Design in The graphic designer has solved He delivered the 2007 commencement Chicago, recognizing significant trends in In high school, Chip Kidd drew “what “problems” such as creating the design address for Penn State’s College of Arts communication design. everybody draws”—logos of rock bands, for Michael Crichton’s 1990 book Jurassic and Architecture and was a 2013 Penn State and the shark from Jaws, “because that Park. The much-lauded cover features the Forum speaker. Kidd is a 2004 Penn State Alumni Fellow was very easy to draw.” Raised in Lincoln silhouetted Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton and received the College of Arts and Park, a suburb of Reading, Pa., Kidd planned that became the basis for the logo of Kidd recently donated his expansive Architecture Alumni Award in 1996. to study general communications at Penn the iconic movie franchise. His extensive archives to Penn State’s University Libraries. State with the idea of going into TV list of cover credits includes more than “For better or worse, I save everything,” In 2013, Kidd married his partner of 18 broadcasting, but during his first term on 1,000 books by diverse, notable authors he said of the 250 boxes now housed years, J.D. McClatchy, a writer and editor campus, an advisor steered him toward including Anne Rice, Katharine Hepburn, in The Eberly Family Special Collections of the Yale Review and a Pulitzer-Prize- graphic design. Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, Library. Extending from his youth to the nominated poet and librettist. They Augusten Burroughs, James Ellroy, John present, the collection includes original divide their time among New York City, That led to 27 years—and counting—of Updike, and David Sedaris. He also is the artwork, digital data, correspondence from Stonington, Conn., and Palm Beach, Fla. designing book covers at Alfred A. Knopf jacket designer for The Letters of Ernest authors, and page proofs with handwritten Publishing and being termed “the closest Hemingway series, edited by Penn State notations that illuminate the artist’s thing to a rock star in graphic design” by Professor of English Sandra Spanier ’76g, creative process. USA Today. He has even been the subject ’81g. of a question on Jeopardy: “A. His work In 2014, AIGA, the professional association at Alfred A. Knopf made Chip Kidd a Kidd is the author of books including The for design, honored Kidd with the AIGA superstar in designing these. Q: What are Cheese Monkeys and The Learners, both Medal for exceptional achievements book covers?” fictionalized, satirical accounts of his time in the field of design. He also received at Penn State, as well as the graphic novel the 2007 National Design Award Kidd credits Penn State Distinguished Batman: Death by Design and several for Communications, presented by Professor of Graphic Design Lanny books about comics. His most recent Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Sommese and the late Bill Kinser, a works are Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design Museum, and in 1998 was invited former associate professor, with laying Design and Chip Kidd: Book One, Work to membership in the elite Alliance the foundation for his sterling career. 1986-2006, which covers his first two Graphique Internationale. His work has “They really helped shape my ability for decades of jackets for works of fiction, been featured in exhibitions ranging from .

Load more