‘A lot of graphic designers don’t get credit for what they do’: Chip Kidd on building a 40-year career

Growing up, graphic designer, editor, and author Chip Kidd was about as artsy as he could be in 1970s suburban Reading, Pennsylvania. “I glommed onto comic books very early on,” he says. “I loved to draw. I loved to write. I took up the drums and joined the marching band; all of this typical artsy-gay-kid-that-can’t-come-out stuff.” 

Still, he says, he knew he wasn’t the most talented in drawing. “There’s always that other kid that draws better than you who gets the gig to draw everything for the yearbook; It’s not tragic. It’s like, alright, I’ve got to figure something else out.” 

That something else, as it happens, worked out pretty well. 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’s Jurassic Park). He’s written two novels, several nonfiction books on graphic design, and in 2025 released his first Marvel graphic novel, The Avengers in the Veracity Trap! 

Here, he talks about the kismet of his career arc from Eastern Pennsylvania, the practice of framing graphic design as problem solving, and how The New York Times crossword runs parallel to his creative process. 

I knew I wanted to do something creative for a living. In high school, we had––and they do to this day at Wilson High School in Westlawn, Pennsylvania––a fully functional television station within the high school. It’s like the ultimate AV Club. We would take turns running the camera, being on camera, directing the camera people. We covered all of our sporting events. For a while I thought that’s what I wanted to do. Then I started doing graphics for the various shows we were doing. This was from 1982 to 1986, pre-computer, everything done by hand. I didn’t really know at the time what graphic design was, but that’s what I was doing. 

I got accepted to Penn State in the school of communications. My freshman year, a guidance counselor pointed me in the direction of, “Oh we have a graphic design department here. Maybe you should try that?” So I took Introduction to Graphic Design, Introduction to Color Theory, etc, etc. And that is when I figured out what I wanted to do. The happily boring story is that I majored in that for the next four years, graduated with a portfolio, and went to New York City in the fall of 1986. That was the goal: go to New York and try to get a job. I interviewed at the time at all of the top graphic design firms and I got good feedback, but nobody had an entry-level position. 

Someone steered me over to Random House and at their imprint Knopf Publishing. They actually did have an entry-level position. I raised my hand. It was the assistant to the art director at Alfred A. Knopf Publishing. At that time, the art department was literally me and my boss. It was waxers and t-squares and taping your board onto your drawing table and lining everything up, measuring it all out. I enjoyed that. 

Then, gradually with time, I was given small design jobs for the books. It grew from there. In October, if I live that long, I will have passed my 40th year at Alfred A. Knopf. I feel very fortunate. Frankly, I’m the last of that breed. I have peers who are also the last, but that’s going to be it. It’s not for me to say, but the age of a 40-year career at the same place used to be not that unusual, but going forward it will be. That’s just the way things have evolved.

I grew up in the town next to Shillington, Pennsylvania, the town my father grew up in. John Updike’s 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 ’80s, I introduced myself to him and I told him this circumstance. He was absolutely delighted. We became fellow Shillington-ites. 

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’s not. 

I think of myself as a visual person, and I think of myself as a creative person. What I don’t think of myself as is an artist. I understand at least in my mind what the division is between graphic designer and artist with a capital A. A big part of that division is that graphic design is problem solving for a client. Most of my clients were writers, though in that time I did a lot of freelance work as well—a poster, a logo, or in rare cases product design. You are creating something in the service of another piece of creation which frankly takes precedent over yours. That’s just the definition of the job. 

I have written several novels. That is much closer to art with a capital A. You’re starting with a proverbial blank page and starting to figure out how to fill it. You’re creating something from scratch. That to me is being an artist. Graphic designers are taking the writer or artist’s work and giving it a visual presence in the world. It’s much more—this sounds awful— but it’s more of a service industry, and I have no problem with that. What I’ve been able to do is get recognition for what I’ve done over the years. When I was first hired, I was barely 22 and what I understood from the get-go was that these are hardcover first editions with book jackets. When you look at the back flap it lists who exactly designed it. So I understood that was important.

I have an aphorism: Limits are possibilities. It isn’t just an aphorism. It’s true. I learned that in school. You can only use one color to solve this problem, and it’s a challenge, but to me it’s a welcomed and interesting challenge. 

If something gets rejected, you have to approach that as an opportunity to start over and do something better. That can be difficult. Especially when you as a designer believe you solved it the best way the first time. Again, in that sense, you’re not in charge. All you’re in charge of is doing the design. You’re not in charge of getting it approved. So when I hit the wall with a design, what I do is give myself a break for a couple of days and think about: alright, this metaphor wasn’t working so is there another one that would work better? That’s the job: resilience.

A lot of graphic designers do not get credit for what they do. Who designed the Tide detergent box? We don’t know but it certainly is iconic. Even going back to Coca-Cola: Who designed that? Since then, there are entire books on the history of graphic design, as which there should be, and sometimes you can get to the root. But for the most part these are not people you know of. 

Growing up in the ’70s, the only other area of graphic design where the designers got credit were record album covers. If you looked closely, you could see this one was done by Peter Saville. He was a huge influence on me. He was the graphic designer who did all of the sleeves for these groups coming out of Manchester: Joy Division, New Order, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. I discovered that while I was in college. 

To this day, if I design a book cover and it gets put out into the world, it has my name on it. That is why we are even having this discussion right now. Not only did I get credit for what I was doing, but I piggybacked on these books that became iconic bestselling books. Cormac McCarthy, Donna Tartt, David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Oliver Sacks, John Updike. It was an incredible opportunity to work nonstop on these books that many of which became not just bestsellers but part of the literary canon of America. 

Every book is different, and every author is different. You have authors who do want to be very much involved, but you also have authors who more or less say, “Well do your job and I’ll react to it.” Book covers don’t sell books. What they are supposed to do is get your attention, to lead you to examine the book and see if it’s something you want to read. The book clubs, the reviews, that is the stuff that really does sell the book. It’s been that way forever in some form or another.

I’m a great crossword puzzle addict. In the New York Times, Monday is super easy, and by Saturday it’s really, really hard. If I’m on a Friday or Saturday puzzle and I get stuck, I can put it aside and work on something else. In that time, l’ll start to see things and understand things I didn’t at the beginning. My subconscious has been working on it even when I wasn’t thinking about it. Graphic design problems are the same thing. 

I don’t know so much that creativity can be taught outright, but certainly developing your creativity can be taught. And the extent to which your creativity is functional and effective, that can be taught, unless you’re just out of the womb a genius––and some people are, certainly.  Without my design education at Penn State, there’s no way I would have gotten to where I’ve gotten. I’m very much aware of that. Design education is a very practical thing, if you get a good one. 

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