Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.
— Chip Kidd
The most craziest Chip Kidd quotes that are simple and will have a huge impact on you
Design is a response to a specific problem.
You are given a problem to solve, and then you let the problem itself tell you what your solution is.
Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability.
But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness - a little bit of humanity.
Kiddies, Graphic Design, if you wield it effectively, is Power.
Power to transmit ideas that change everything. Power that can destroy an entire race or save a nation from despair. In this century, Germany chose to do the former with the swastika, and America opted for the latter with Mickey Mouse and Superman.
A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku of the story.
Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.
Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas.
Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores.
Limits are possibilities. ... Formal restrictions, contrary to what you might think, free you up by allowing you to concentrate on purer ideas. ... You can be crippled by too many choices, especially if you don't know what your goals are.
Life is a life-long assignment that must be constantly analyzed, clarified, figured out, and responded to appropriately.
I often get asked, 'Is the book dead?' It hasn't happened yet.
It's different than music. Music was always meant to be pure sound - it started out as pure sound and now it's pure sound again. But books started out as things. Words on paper began as words on paper. The paperback book is the best technology to deliver that information to you.
I think too many comic book covers are way too busy, crammed with far too much information, both visual and verbal, that just becomes a dull noise.
I still have a steady stream of book cover work. I'm grateful for it. Viva le book!
I think the genre of comics sometimes overtakes the medium, and people assume that they are kind of frivolous. If you have a good, strong story teller, they can be as affecting as any character in literature. Period.
If you can properly define the problem, then you've already defined the solution as well.
I am all for the iPad, but trust me - smelling it will get you nowhere.
I had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea where I was going, but at some point I stopped — when to keep going would seem like I was going too far.
What people really want, no matter who they are, is someone to listen to them.
... people have a lot on their minds, however trivial, and if you're simply willing to sit there like a sack of dirt and let them yammer, they will tell it to you.
Yes, Garnett Grey was an Architect. Were a psychoanalyst to approach him from behind, tap his shoulder, and say 'Humanity,' Garrett'd spin and respond, without hesitation, 'Solvable'.
Antisappointment. Anticipation colliding head-on with the certainty of its own doom.