{"id":7063,"date":"2026-07-14T09:44:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=7063"},"modified":"2026-07-14T09:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:45:16","slug":"updikes-favorite-dust-jacket-designer-talks-about-his-own-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/07\/14\/updikes-favorite-dust-jacket-designer-talks-about-his-own-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Updike&#8217;s favorite dust jacket designer talks about his own work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Updike Society members were fortunate to have heard Knopf graphic designer Chip Kidd speak at the society&#8217;s third biennial conference in Shillington-Reading, Pa., which Kidd, like Updike, called home. Since then, he&#8217;s been busy. Really busy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/07\/14\/updikes-favorite-dust-jacket-designer-talks-about-his-own-work\/screenshot-2026-07-14-at-9-43-11-am\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7064\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-7064\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-9.43.11-AM-226x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"226\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-9.43.11-AM-226x300.png 226w, https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-9.43.11-AM.png 662w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px\" \/><\/a>In their introduction to an interview they did with Kidd, <em>Fast Company<\/em> summarized his productive life:\u00a0 &#8220;Today Kidd is approaching 40 years as Associate Art Director at Alfred A. Knopf (he is perhaps best known for designing the book cover of Michael Crichton&#8217;s <em>Jurassic Park<\/em>). He&#8217;s written two novels, several nonfiction books on graphic design, and in 2025 released his first Marvel graphic novel, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s?k=the+avengers+in+the+veracity+trap&amp;crid=1MRLWPNLIKW5Y&amp;sprefix=the+avengers+in+the+veracity+trap%2Caps%2C144&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss_1\"><em>The Avengers in the Veracity Trap!<\/em><\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since he was Updike&#8217;s fellow Berks Countian and favorite designer, of course Updike came up during the course of the interview:<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I grew up in the town next to Shillington, Pennsylvania, the town my father grew up in.\u00a0John Updike\u2019s father was his math teacher. Alfred A. Knopf published John Updike, and I ended up working on his book covers. At some point, I would say in the late \u201980s, I introduced myself to him and I told him this circumstance. He was absolutely delighted. We became fellow Shillington-ites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He was very prolific so I worked with him for 25 years. He just really enjoyed that connection and when I published my first monograph with Rizzoli in 2006, he wrote the introduction to it. That was just a thrill and an honor for me. This idea of something coming full circle. It sounds fictional, but it\u2019s not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91536171\/chip-kidd-on-building-a-40-year-career\">the whole interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Updike Society members were fortunate to have heard Knopf graphic designer Chip Kidd speak at the society&#8217;s third biennial conference in Shillington-Reading, Pa., which Kidd, like Updike, called home. Since then, he&#8217;s been busy. Really busy. In their introduction &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2026\/07\/14\/updikes-favorite-dust-jacket-designer-talks-about-his-own-work\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,17,10,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berks-county-news","category-interviews","category-publications","category-updike-in-context"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7063"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7067,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions\/7067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}