Growing up, my local library was housed in a cottage that could have come from a fairytale, sitting on a small wooded lot behind a black, wrought iron gate and fence, clearly delineating in my mind the line between the real world and the world of books—a world of imagination, possibilities and adventure. Most summer days I would walk the two or three blocks to the library, open the gate and cross the threshold, the sweet scent of aging, well-read books inescapable once inside the library’s small rooms. Walking through the stacks, I’d run my hand along the spines until a book would catch my eye and I would pull it down and take it home with me.
The maze of book-lined shelves inspired my curiosity; the spines were little horizontal clues to the mystery printed in black ink on the yellowing pages. I wanted to know what was inside all of them, but even more I loved to look at them and touch them, feeling their weight, inhaling their smells and lingering over the feel of the pages between my thumb and finger. But it wasn’t until the last few years, with the sudden explosion of Kindles, Nooks and iPads and the ensuing e-book invasion, that I truly understood how important those physical books had been to me.
Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd understands this power better than almost anyone. For 25 years he’s been a book designer for Alfred A. Knopf, skillfully balancing the needs of the reader, the author and the publisher while creating beautiful book jacket haikus to tell the books’ stories using typography, color and design.
Standing on the TED stage in March 2012, dressed in a black suit jacket with thick yellow edging, matching yellow trousers, striped black and red tie and crooked, broken glasses, Kidd—with his boyish face and big, easy grin—looked like a boarding school Peter Pan, never growing up but stubbornly and stylishly improving on the uniform—the only artist member of the Dead Poet’s Society. His presentation fit with his appearance. Kidd joked, made funny faces and performed strange, Lady Gaga-inspired dances, mostly because he was on stage and he could.
But through the jokes and laughs it was clear Kidd was serious about books, design and meaning. He spoke about creating a number of iconic book designs such as “Naked” by David Sedaris, the recent “1Q84” by Haruki Murakami and “Jurassic Park” by Michael Crichton—elements of which were ultimately used in the movie’s logo design and still appear on merchandising even today.
“Very basic stuff,” Kidd said of his “Jurassic Park” design. “Slightly suggestive of public park signage.”
Kidd has been thrilled by the response, however. He even found a photo online of man who had the “Jurassic Park” logo’s dinosaur element tattooed on his calf.
“[I]f you think about, from my head to my hands to his leg,” he said, laughing. “That’s a responsibility. And it’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly.”
By embracing fully his responsibility, Kidd has been able to create books that are works of art in their own right. He plays with the form, using the jacket the way a magician uses a silk cloth, teasing a mystery and encouraging readers to dive in to the book and explore. Kidd creates the kind of books that would have stopped me in my tracks decades ago during my daily pilgrimage to that small library. His books beg to be touched, weighed in the hand and thoughtfully considered—qualities that are lost in modern e-books.
“Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability,” he said. “But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness — a little bit of humanity.”
Kidd described author John Updike’s tradition each time he received the first copy of one his books.
“He’d smell it,” Kidd said. “Then he’d run his hand over the rag paper, and the pungent ink and the deckled edges of the pages. All those years, all those books, he never got tired of it.
“Now, I am all for the iPad, but trust me—smelling it will get you nowhere,” he continued before noting, “Now the Apple guys are texting, ‘Develop odor emission plug-in.’”
The audience laughed at the joke but a tiny hint of sadness broke through Kidd’s goofy demeanor. He loves books—Kidd is himself a twice-published author—but he also loves books as art objects, a notion e-books reject just by existing.
Still, it is easy to believe that beautiful, well-designed books will continue to hold an important place in our culture so long as Kidd (and other brilliant designers) continues to have a say in their design. Perhaps e-books will give designers license to take even more chances and push their creativity even further as physical books become art objects separate from the language printed on their pages, something only they can do. E-books create wonderfully convenient and rich reading experiences but they cannot be art objects the way paper books can be.
Kidd concedes e-books have their place but he still prefers a good, old-fashioned bound book.
“[F]or this book designer, page-turner, dog-eared place-holder, notes in the margins-taker, ink-sniffer, the story looks like this,” he concluded, holding up a copy of “1Q84.”
Written by Ryan Schill / Contributor
Ryan Schill is a journalist, editor and photographer specializing in investigative, feature and literary journalism. A graduate of Kennesaw State University, Ryan holds a BS in Communication with a concentration in Media Studies and is currently pursuing an MA in Professional Writing. He tweets occasionally at @rpschill.
