Tod Lippy

In the summer of 2003, Lippy edited and designed the first issue of Esopus, the main activity of the Esopus Foundation, which was declared "a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty, less flipped through than stared at", by David Carr of The New York Times in 2004.[1] Lippy was the publication's editor, designer, publisher, and sole full-time employee until it suspended publication in 2018 after 25 issues. Esopus has been the subject of dedicated exhibitions at de Appel Art Center in Amsterdam (2016)[2] and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (2017),[3] and Lippy's particular approach to the presentation of creative work in an unmediated format has been featured in numerous print and digital features[4][5][6] as well as interviews on NPR stations such as KCRW and WNYC.[7][8] Lippy's influential design work for Esopus has been featured in books such as the Graphis Design Annual, Print Design Annual, Essentials of Visual Communication (Laurence King, 2008), and Art Direction + Editorial Design (Abrams, 2007)—and in exhibitions at venues including the Walker Art Center, Rome's Contemporary Art Museum, and the Casino Luxembourg. He has been invited to participate in a number of panel discussions related to small-press and nonprofit publishing, including the 2009 conference of the American Library Association's Rare Books and Manuscripts Section at the University of Virginia in 2009[9] and the AIGA "Fresh Dialogue" speakers' series in 2007.[10]

From 1998 to 2002, Lippy was an adjunct faculty member at the School of Visual Arts M.F.A. Design program, where he developed the graduate seminar "The Magazine Workshop". He has since lectured at educational and cultural institutions including the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Nasher Sculpture Center, MTV Networks, Aesop, Bennington College, Rice University, New York University, Colby College, USC's Roski School of Fine Arts, and Yale University. He has been interviewed for a range of journals, radio programs, and books, including Becoming a Graphic Designer (Wiley, 2005); Fresh Dialogue: Making Magazines (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007); and the NPR program From Scratch.

Besides serving as designer of all Esopus issues, subscriber editions, books, and Esopus Foundation collateral material, Lippy also works as a freelance graphic designer. He has designed a number of books for Derek Eller Gallery, including Alyson Shotz (2014), Karl Wirsum: Mr. Whatzit (2017); and Jameson Green (2022), as well as the covers (with Rodrigo Corral) of Louis Menand's The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021) and Jason Bitner's Found Polaroids (Quack!Media, 2007). Lippy's design work has also extended into musical packaging, including the CD for Composer Alive (Access Contemporary Music, 2022) as well as all of his own musical releases.

From 2009 to 2012, Lippy served as curator and director of Esopus Space, an alternative exhibition and performance venue in New York City, where he mounted 18 exhibitions and staged 30 events. Lippy also curated the exhibitions "Mark Hogancamp" (2006)[11] and "Don Bachardy: One-Day Stands" (2008; jointly organized with Matthew Higgs)[12] at White Columns in Manhattan; and "Mark Hogancamp: Women of Marwencol" (2014; co-curated with Janet Hicks)[13] and "Golden Years: Photographs by Ed Rosenbaum" (2016)[14] at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. In 2018, Lippy launched the event series "In Process", for which he interviewed creative people from a range of disciplines about the process behind their work. His subjects included photographer Tina Barney, designer Fernando Santangelo, MoMA archivist Michelle Elligott, film producer Alan Elliott, and podcaster/journalist Leon Neyfakh. Lippy's 2000 short narrative film Cookies was shown in 20 film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Lippy designed, edited, and co-authored (with Michelle Elligott) the book Modern Artifacts (Esopus Books), which was released in June 2020 to critical acclaim.[15] The publication ended up on the "best of the year" lists of The New York Times,[16] the Los Angeles Times,[17] and New York magazine.[18] Lippy edited and designed The Esopus Reader, an anthology of written contributions to Esopus from figures including Karl Ove Knausgaard, Lisa Kudrow, Ann Goldstein, Lonnie Holley, and Christopher Wheeldon that was published by Esopus Books in February 2022.[19] The book was declared both "brilliant and highbrow" in New York magazine's influential "Approval Matrix" feature upon its release.[20] Lippy's book of in-depth interviews with figures including David O. Russell, Wes Anderson, Frances McDormand, and Spike Lee, Projections 11: New York City Film-makers on New York Film-making, was published by Faber and Faber in 2000.

In October 2019 Lippy released his first album, Here We Are. Its lead single, "Good Start", was selected by L.A. radio station KCRW as its "Today's Top Tune" on Monday, September 2, 2019. Lippy produced the 10-song album with Kramer, who also mixed and mastered it in the summer of 2019. Lippy's second album, Yearbook, was released on June 25, 2021, to positive reviews.[21][22][23] Midterms, a 6-song EP including the singles "Assorted Hits 11," "Happy Ending," and "Adam," was released in the summer of 2022. Closer Than They Appear, an album featuring Lippy's covers of songs by musical acts including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Low, Lucinda Williams, and The Alan Parsons Project, was released on November 4, 2022.

In August 2018, Lippy was awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, during which he completed a series of drawings related to Esopus that were published in the book Esopus Drawings in the fall of 2018. He was the recipient of Specific Object's "Object of the Year" award (for Esopus) in 2007 and was given an Acker Award in 2018 for his contributions to the downtown NYC avant-garde community.

• Official website
• Tod Lippy Music
• Esopus