CHIPS

Listen Up Philip

Listen Up Philip is a dark comedy about a young writer named Philip (Jason Schwartzman), his photographer girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss) and Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), the respected older author who becomes his mentor. CHIPS worked closely with director Alex Ross Perry to design believable (and subtly satirical) book covers not only for Philip’s relatively recent releases, but for Zimmerman’s entire back catalog.

  • 1971 Madness and Women

    Ike Zimmerman, Madness & Women (1971)

  • 1982 Audit

    Ike Zimmerman, Audit (1982)

The style of each book conforms to design trends and tropes of the era it was supposed to have been published, using typefaces that would have been widely available at the time. The covers feature prominently in several key scenes.

  • Introduction to Ike Zimmerman, narrated by Eric Bogosian

  • 1974 Some People Are Decent

    Ike Zimmerman, Some People Are Decent (1974)

  • Ike Paperbacks

    Ike Zimmerman paperback series (late 1970s)

  • End title sequence

The film’s end title sequence, set in type meant to resemble the swashy book jackets of Philip Roth’s early novels, comprises nineteen book covers designed specifically for the film.

  • Philip Obidant Hardcover

    Philip Lewis Friedman, Obidant (2014)

  • Philip Obidant French Cover Options

    Options presented to Philip for the French cover of Obidant

After its premiere at Sundance, Tribeca Film purchased Listen Up Philip and hired CHIPS to apply the movie’s design sensibility to its marketing materials.

  • LUP Poster WEB

The design of the theatrical poster is meant to evoke film posters of the 1970s with its thin border and abundant white space. Its central image is a painting by illustrator Anna Bak-Kvapil.

  • LUP VOD Vertical

    VOD Art, vertical

  • LUP VOD Horizontal

    VOD art, horizontal

For the key art displayed on video-on-demand services such as iTunes and Netflix, we were required to feature the stars’ faces instead of using the painting from the theatrical poster. What we came up with resembles — what else? — a vintage book jacket. The animated titles we created for the trailer follow suit.

  • Theatrical trailer