The wait is almost over. Artbreak, the music project destined to make Chip Kidd a rock star as well as a graphic design star, is breaking out with its live full-set debut at Joe’s Pub in New York City on Monday, August 4. Backed by Artbreakers Mars Trillion, Paul Schellack, and Dylan Wissing, Kidd will croon such New Wavey original hits-to-be as the positively infectious “Filigree” (we’re considering getting the “Know it all / SuperBall / It’s no use…” lyric tastefully tatooed on our lower extremities) and debut the Gary Nadeau-directed video for “Asymmetrical Girl.” We’ve got our tickets (buy yours here), but they’re sure to go fast as today’s New York Post reminded readers of the origins of the band’s name: “our Aug. 27, 2006, headline, ‘Artbreaking’—about famed quadriplegic artist Chuck Close‘s battle with a condo project threatening to block his studio’s sunlight.” And speaking of sunlight, if you’re in San Diego at Comic-Con, visit Kidd at the Pantheon booth, where he’s promoting his imminent Bat-Manga! book, or at the DC booth, where he’s signing copies of his Final Crisis and Trinity logo designs. And tell him UnBeige sent you!

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Crank up your Harmon Kardon SoundSticks, Debbie Millman tells us that Chip Kidd will be playing some music by his band Artbreak on today’s “Design Matters“!

His debut performance back in December got a nice write up on NYMag.com (which gave us yet another comparison to ponder: “Go-Gos meet Joy Division”?), so to commemorate the radio debut of this legitimate rock star we’ve included this Tiger Beat-worthy shot here for you to print out and put on your wall. Plus you know “Design Matters” is a call-in show, right? So maybe he’ll take some a capella requests? 1.866.472.5790

You can listen live at 3pm EST here, see all the other options for tuning in, or podcast it for later…perhaps Artbreak’s the Cars meet the New Pornographers meet the Go-Gos meet Joy Division breed of rock can to accompany you to the gym.

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Don’t miss our adorable Kidd of the Year, Chip Kidd, in this interview by Dwell. In this episode, we learn he lived one town over from John Updike, whose father was Kidd’s father’s math teacher (A ha! So the literary thing was kind of embedded early on). He also discusses his comic loves and answers the question of whether or not he gets residuals for the Jurassic Park image. (“Yes, I do, in fact, we need to end this soon so I can go fly to my yacht.”) Don’t miss the Kidd-cam when surveying his apartment and—yes!–footage of his now-famous performance with Artbreak!

Then tune in this Friday for the premiere of “Design Matters,” starring Kidd and more than a few surprises!

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Effervescent host (and quite the hostess as well) Debbie Millman has leaked the new season of “Design Matters” to UnBeige first, kicking off January 18 with our Man of the Year, Chip Kidd. Graphic designers, writers, illustrators, authors, scientists, editors, a Nobel Prize winner and many, many UnBeige favorites will be featured on the show, which, incidentally, was voted a “favorite podcast” on PSFK’s IF Marketing Podcast survey. Tune in every Friday at 3pm to hear these fine voices:

January 18: Chip Kidd
January 25: Eric Kandel
February 1: Kurt Andersen
February 8: Vaughan Oliver
February 15: Jonah Lehrer
February 22: Petrula Vrontikis
February 29: Stefan Bucher
March 7: Laurie Rosenwald
March 14: Jeffrey Zeldman
March 28: Abbott Miller
April 11: Robynne Raye
April 18: All Music Show with DJ and Designer Michael Hodgson
April 25: Lawrence Weiner

Full bios for each guest can be found below.

continued…

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Maybe because it’s so fresh in our mind, but non-designer Michael Wolff‘s Dr. Evil impression sure does stick out as our favorite design memory of the year (Wolff photo courtesy of Jessica Perilla). Not this time, Mr. Glaser!

Here’s to many more non-banal moments in 2008. You can see our ten favorite 2007 stories here.

Have an extra-bubbly New Year’s Day for us.

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Who did the baddest book cover design of them all? He did.

Who won a National Design Award and then DJed the afterparty? He did.

Who got his house profiled in international publication after international publication? He did.

Who got his first novel optioned then put together a very thick monograph then cranked out another novel to be released in the near future? He did.

Who fronted a band on the side? (And they’re good!) He did, he did.

And he does.

He’s our courageous creative, our multitasking man, our Artbreak hero, our UnBeige crush of the new year, Chip Kidd. Yes, Chip, you’re a legitimate Rock Star in our hearts now.

UnBeige is counting down our biggest stories of 2007, all day, right here.

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Thanks for the invitations, New York design community (or in some cases, not having a list at the door). Here’s where we found ourselves drinking free toddies this week…

Rockwell Group
Address: Bowlmor Lanes
Crowd: Rockwell Group employees
Specialty Cocktail: Bullshot, served by “celebrity bartender” Laurie Rosenwald
Big Sightings: Maira Kalman, Tucker Viemeister wearing a Santa hat
Just Missed: Chee Pearlman
Highlight (pictured here): A video kaleidoscope created by James Tichenor and Joshua Walton that projected snowflakes cut by partygoers onto huge screens around the room. No word on how many Bullshots were served before bare butts were also projected around the room.

Debbie Millman’s SVA Class
Address: Millman’s swank pad
Crowd: Students, former “Design Matters” guests
Specialty Cocktail: Champagne (for those of age), as double-fisted by Felix Sockwell
Big Sightings: Chip Kidd, James Victore, Tobias Frere-Jones
Just Missed: Joyce Rutter Kaye
Highlight: Millman giving signed copies of 100% Evil to her students, which were doodled on more by Christoph Niemann and Nicholas Blechman, both in attendance.

The Architect’s Newspaper
Address: The well-appointed loft of William Menking and Diana Darling
Crowd: Architects, writers, architect-writers
Specialty Cocktail: Real egg nog, with fresh grated nutmeg
Big Sightings: The lady design journalist power trio of Julie Lasky, Julie Iovine and Eve Kahn
Just Missed: Teddy Cruz
Highlight: The view.

Good Design Party
Address: Good pop-up store
Crowd: Green design consultants, graphic designers, Mr. T fans
Specialty Cocktail: Organic wheat vodka with Izze sparkling clementine juice in biodegradable cups made from corn
Big Sightings: Emily Oberman, supercute young’un Jonathan Harris presenting the Whale Hunt
Just Missed: Bobby Martin giving his slam-dunk presentation again
Highlight: Mike Essl showing off his world’s largest Mr. T memorabilia collection, including a clip from VH1′s “Totally Obsessed” where he and his co-collector eat a 20-year-old box of Mr. T cereal.

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When we first heard that Chip Kidd would be playing with his band Artbreak for the first time anywhere last night, we were intrigued for sure, but wondered…would they be any good? From our top-secret embedded design/rock critic who tossed more than one undergarment onto the stage, we have the following review:

They are ridiculously good. Think The New Pornographers meet The Cars, with solid Ric Ocasek-quality lyrics. Kidd oozes charisma. The designers here are packed close to the stage and going wild. One young kid asked me where Kidd finds the time for all these creative antics. I told him in all honesty I had no freaking clue.

And there you have it, a new era in design criticism/music journalism has begun. Now, where is Kidd going to find someone to design the cover of their first album?

These fine photos by another face in the crowd, Francisco Hui.

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According to our top-level informant/groupie embedded at tonight’s highly-anticipated Artbreak (get it?) concert, Chip Kidd took the stage for a brief reading from his new novel The Learners (above) before rocking the house (below).

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He asked where his groupies were. The answer: The Lion’s Den, 11pm, New York City.

Hmmmm, now what would a Chip Kidd groupie wear…a Jurassic Park t-shirt?

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Before we lost our minds in Miami, we met up over PBRs, ever so briefly, with Kevin Grady and Colin Metcalf, who were in town giving a presentation at Art Center. You might remember their bubblicious GUM, which was kinda like a comic book, kinda like a magazine, kinda like a limited-edition toy. Then they launched Lemon, a straight-up zine, which we praised awhile back for both its creativity and its amazing list of contributors: Malcolm McDowell, Billy Corgan, Leelee Sobieski, Ray Bradbury, Pop Levi, Matthew Modine, Gary Baseman, Chip Kidd, Stefan Bucher and Jill Greenberg were just in the last issue alone.

Grady and Metcalf told us that as much as they love making GUMs, they sure are a heckuva lot of work (they have day jobs, too, if you can believe it); instead, they’re looking to plump up Lemon, making it more like an annual. Their next issue, which we can’t divulge much about yet, sounds awesome. Let’s just say they’ve been watching a lot of men in white spandex. Events to celebrate the release will be in the form of Milk Bars (we don’t know what that means, but apparently it involves rum) held in NY and LA in early 2008, so keep your eyes peeled.

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The nice people at Murketing directed us towards the first of many, many, many, many, many, many, many end of the year round up lists, compiled by The Book Design Review blog. Peruse these picks of the best book covers of 2007—including some of our favorites by Chip Kidd, Rodrigo Corral, Paul Sahre and the fabulous specimen to the left by Evan Gaffney.

Vote for your favorite at the end or enter into the fray in the comments. Let the best-of season begin!

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When not being a slave to the beat, Chip Kidd hangs his Walter Gropius-styled eyeglasses in a now-famous apartment in New York. While not the first publication to peek inside Kidd World, the Telegraph’s “Warning: Graphic Material” gives us the gratuitous Jurassic Park reference and the anecdote about the cover that almost killed Augusten Burroughs‘ book Dry. But for some reason we were drawn to this very important paragraph:

USA Today called him ‘the closest thing to a rock star’ in graphic design today. To which Kidd responds, ‘It’s cringe-inducing. It makes me wonder: “If I’m such a rock star where are my groupies?”‘

Although we beg to differ with the USA Today quote–it was actually Veronique Vienne who was quoting other sources, see for yourself–Kidd gives a very good reason for why he gets a little more attention than his peers:

“I think that I get recognition for my work only because it’s standard that your name gets put on the back flap of the book if you’re a book designer. It’s not standard for most graphic designers.”

And really, must you ask where your groupies are? We’re right here, Chip. We’re right here.

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Add another chapter to the Chip Kidd-Howard Grossman epic Jurassic vs. Tyrannosaurs book cover battle. Lisa Turner sends us the tiny image you see to the left along with this little anecdote:

Actually, the story is more complicated than what you’ve reported. What’s really interesting is that Jurassic Park’s cover looks almost exactly like Doug Preston‘s first book, published years earlier, called Dinosaurs in the Attic (about the Museum of Natural History). Here’s the original Doug Preston cover, changed later (possibly so it wouldn’t look like Jurassic Park).

Later versions of the book are certainly different but it’s still hard to tell if Kidd actually ripped off this book’s design. Our list of potential dinosaur imagery is limited, for obvious reasons, so there’s only so much you can do with the subject matter. If someone wants to contribute some more evidence to this archaeological design dig, we’d be grateful. Or if you could send us a book cover actually designed by a dinosaur, that would be awesome, too.

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