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ANATOMY OF DESIGN
Designing one’s own design monograph—the testament to a life’s work (or
portion thereof)—can be an overwrought self-conscious act. Yet because the
monograph is such personal document, its design arguably should be an
extension of the subject’s sensibility and, therefore, not simply a neutral
vessel but an added expressive statement that both complements and
supplements the retrospective material. Chip Kidd’s eponymous 2006 volume,
optimistically subtitled Book One, is just such a high-intensity production.
Known for pushing the proverbial boundaries of book jacket design—from
purely illustrative to conceptually pictorial and typographical—Kidd ...