Book Cover by Maddie Hiatt

book cover:

the cheese monkeys

by: maddie hiatt

The Cheese Monkeys A novel in two semesters

no ve l

ter

By Chip Kidd

d By Chip Kid

By Chip Kidd

The

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ese

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The Cheese Monkeys

By Chip Kidd

The Cheese Monkeys

A novel in two semesters

Theeese Ch nkeys Mo

A novel in two semesters

Mo nk

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ove l i nt wo est

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I started out just thinking about what exactly I wanted this book cover to feel like. I wanted to have it have an uncomfortable feeling. I wanted it to be off just a bit. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know if I wanted the font to be weird or what but I knew I wanted the feeling to be strange because thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how the book made me feel.

The Cheese Monkeys A novel in two semesters By Chip Kidd

critique one

The

Che Kid

ese

By Chip Kidd

Mo nk

eys

By Chip Kidd

The Cheese Monkeys

A novel in two semesters

ove l in two ers

est

sem

The ones that I chose for my top 3 were all ones with a simple font and made use of lines. I wanted there to be some sort of visual element that would guide the readers eyes to the text. Most of the feed back that I got from the class was that I needed to do something to the font. It needed to be something other than a san serif font. Also something needed to be done with the lines. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I needed to focus on.

critique two

This is what I came up with for the next critique. I added the back cover and all of the text that goes on it. I also found a font that I thought described the feeling I got from the book. I worked on adding the lines and added a background color. The class decided that I needed to do something else with lines. They were just kind of sitting on the page. I decided to have the authors name and tag line within the lines because I wanted them on the cover but not the main focus.

A New York Times Notable Book

no ve l

From people who liked it: “It is rare for a book to produce uncontrollable laughter as loud as this one did. The narrator is at art college in the 1950’s, and after failing to get the courses he wants, find himself attending ‘Introduction to Graphic Design,’ taught by the inspiring, sadistic,and compelling Professor Winter Sorbeck. Through humiliation and excess he showshis naive young charges how to see the world through new eyes. This is a brilliantlyentertaining debut — intelligent, pitch-perfect, and enlightening.” —The Times (London) “This story about growing up and finding your calling is funny and, almost despite itself, moving. Here the big ideas—about growing, working, loving—are all inside.” — New York Times Book Review

“A joyride.” — Miami Herald “ Not only is [The Cheese Monkeys] sharp and funny, it’s also one of the year’s most original American novels.” — Toronto Globe and Mail From people who didn’t: “Retro kitsch. Thoroughly sophomoric.” — Entertainment Weekly “The first section veers dangerously toward the predictable. Kidd has a long way to go before his literary skills equal his artistic genius.” — Time Out [New York]

Cheese Monkeys

THE

“An irresistible comic voice that sounds so modern, and so right, even as it re-creates the undergraduate life of the late 1950’s.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “Channeling Holden Caufield via Davis Sedaris. Kidd produces a stellar debut.” — Publishers Weekly

By Chip Kidd

critique three

“This story about growing up and finding your calling is funny and, almost despite itself, moving. Here the big ideas—about growing, working, loving—are all inside.” — New York Times Book Review “An irresistible comic voice that sounds so modern, and so right, even as it re-creates the undergraduate life of the late 1950’s.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “Channeling Holden Caufield via Davis Sedaris. Kidd produces a stellar debut.” — Publishers Weekly “A joyride.” — Miami Herald “ Not only is [The Cheese Monkeys] sharp and funny, it’s also one of the year’s most original American novels.” — Toronto Globe and Mail

From people who didn’t:

“Retro kitsch. Thoroughly sophomoric.” — Entertainment Weekly

se m tw o in no ve l

Cheese

Monkeys

A novel in two semesters

“The first section veers dangerously toward the predictable. Kidd has a long way to go before his literary skills equal his artistic genius.” — Time Out [New York]

“It is rare for a book to produce uncontrollable laughter as loud as this one did. The narrator is at art college in the 1950’s, and after failing to get the courses he wants, find himself attending ‘Introduction to Graphic Design,’ taught by the inspiring, sadistic,and compelling Professor Winter Sorbeck. Through humiliation and excess he showshis naive young charges how to see the world through new eyes. This is a brilliantlyentertaining debut — intelligent, pitch-perfect, and enlightening.” —The Times (London)

Cheese Monkeys

From people who liked it:

THE

A New York Times Notable Book

es te rs

Once I added the spine, it actually started to look like a book cover. I added the read color to give it a little more of a pop. I was told that the lines look like an elementary school book so I really needed to change that. I liked the way the back and the spine looked but I knew that something still wasn’t right with cover.

Chip Kidd

By Chip Kidd

final book cover I made the title of the book fit in the white space of on the cover and I really like how it sits there. Having the lines on the cover with one a little off really gives the entire thing an uncomfortable feeling which was what I was going for. Since this book make me feel weird and I honestly didn’t really like it, the cover needed to be strange. I’m really happy with how it all turned out.

“ Not only is [The Cheese Monkeys] sharp and funny, it’s also one of the year’s most original American novels.” — Toronto Globe and Mail

From people who didn’t:

“Retro kitsch. Thoroughly sophomoric.” — Entertainment Weekly “The first section veers dangerously toward the predictable. Kidd has a long way to go before his literary skills equal his artistic genius.” — Time Out [New York]

A novel in two semesters

“A joyride.” — Miami Herald

rs te es m se o tw in no ve l

From people who liked it:

THE

Cheese Monkeys

A New York Times Notable Book

The Cheese

Monkeys

Chip Kidd

By Chip Kidd

inside matter The inside matter was the easiest part for me to design. Because I had the cover done, all I had to do was keep the same elements throughout the pages and I would be good. I have to look at a few books to see the different ways they handled the copyright information but other than that everything was pretty straightforward. I liked doing the table of contents the best because it was strange like the cover. I kept the lines throughout the pages so it was consistent with the cover. I also made them the color of the background to use that repetition.

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Cheese Monkeys

THE

The Cheese Monkeys

A novel in two semesters

Scribner • N ew York • Lo ndon • Toro nto • Sydney • Singapore

Table of COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Scribner 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2001 by Charles Kidd. Yes, Charles. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any form. Scribner and design are registered trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon and Shuster, the publisher of this work. The author is deeply grateful to the Bogliasco Foundation for its generous support. Book design by Chip Kidd, who wrote it in Quark 3.2. Text is set in Apollo and then, at a certain point, Bodoni. Cheese Monkeys logo designed by Mr. F.C. Ware. Manufactured in the United States of America. 13579108642 Library of Congress Cataloging-inPublication Data available. ISBN 0-7432-1492-7.

FALL SEMESTER, 1957

Contents

2 - Registration 21 - ART 101: Introduction to Drawing 57 - ART 101: Introduction to Drawing (cont’d) 85 - Winter Break SPRING SEMESTER 1958 96 : ART 127: Introduction to Commercial art 115 : The first critique 149 : The second Critique 173 : The third critique 213 : The fourth critique 266: The final exam

Fall Semester 1957

REGISTRATION:

During which we construct our course of study

“So, What are you taking?” At that point I could have said a lot of things—I could have said, “ If i don’t get the classes I need after waiting five hours in this line, I am taking that clipboard out of your sausage-fingered hands, breaking it into ten thick splinters, and slowly introducing each one of them beneath your cuticles as a way of saying Thanks for herding us like a flock of three thousand Guatemalan dirt pigs into a ventilation-free hall built for three hundred in order to ask us questions we’ve already answered so many times our minds are jelly and our jaws squeak — an act which has to be covered somewhere in the Bible as punishable by any manner we, in His righteous stead, see fit.” But I didn’t. I mumbled for the umpteenth time that year-long day of that first awful month, my tongue thick with shame, “me? Art.”

Majoring in Art at the state university appealed to me because I have always hated Art, and I had a hunch if any school would treat the subject with the proper disdain, it would be one that was run by the government. Of course I was right. My suspicions were confirmed the minute I entered the Visual Arts building on arrival my freshman year and took in the faculty show in its gallery. I beheld: melting lop-sided Umbrian? hillsides, nudes run over by the Cubist Express, suburban-surrealist flower ladies going about their daily tasks weeping blood tears the size of water gallons, and kittens. Yes, kittens. I thought, “Now these people hate Art a lot. This is where I belong. Perfect.” So what did I like? Well, that spring of senior year at Upper Wissahicken High I was quite pleased with a drawing in green pencil I did on the margin of a page in my dreary Civics textbook of Mickey Mouse ( from Steamboat Willy era—when he really looked like something you’d set out a trap for and cross your fingers) ritually eviscerating Olive Oyl with an oyster fork, because it marked the first time I finally got the proportion of his eyes to his mouth and nose absolutely