‘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.” [Cover Image: courtesy Abrams Books] 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 o