In the ever-evolving graphic design landscape, few narratives span half a century with such profound impact as Kit Hinrichs’. Through his recently released book, “Narrative Design: A Fifty-Year Perspective,” Kit opens a window into his remarkable journey of transforming complex ideas into compelling visual stories. From designing iconic U.S. postal stamps to crafting the visual identity of major institutions, Kit’s work demonstrates how design can transcend mere aesthetics to become a powerful storytelling medium. This comprehensive volume showcases his masterful projects and reveals the philosophy behind a career dedicated to making “the complex, simple” and “the ordinary, beautiful.”
By: Kit Hinrichs, Designer & Principal, Studio Hinrichs
Narrative Design: A Fifty-Year Perspective is a book that has allowed me to look back over my design career and evaluate the range of diverse projects that I’ve encountered throughout my professional life:
“There are many passions in my professional life. The predominant one is telling stories. As a consequence, I have become an obsessive narrative designer. I find stories everywhere waiting to be told, and, fortunately, I have been able to do that through design. By story, I mean more than editorial content. I mean communicating a sense of the subject, albeit a client’s business and philosophy or an event, graphically through print, packaging, the internet, or environmental imaging. For me, design, at its best, is a visual story with the same excitement, pacing, and emotional power as a great play or musical composition. And like producing a play, design is not a solitary act but a collaboration that requires inspiring the talent and spirit of designers, writers, illustrators, photographers, and technicians. A successful outcome demands a strong, clear, consistent focus so that all elements ’speak’ in a single voice that engages the audience.
For me, the role of the narrative designer is to make the complex, simple; the opaque, transparent; the mundane, entertaining; the obtuse, accessible, and the ordinary, beautiful.”
In Narrative Design, I’ve endeavored to explore a range of examples that showcase the breadth of my work, including creating stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, designing a unique inflight magazine for United Airlines, branding for the California Academy of Sciences, and developing years-long series of educational promotions for Sappi Paper Company. In addition, the book highlights other projects on the American flag, the WWII Japanese internment camps, the history of the Pentagram Papers, and an information wall at the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. Through these and hundreds of other examples, I hope to offer insights that may aid other professionals by providing inspiration and practical strategies to approach their narrative design solutions.
Kit Hinrichs, principal of Studio Hinrichs, is a past partner of Pentagram Design and a recipient of the prestigious AIGA medal. Kit has won numerous awards from the AIGA, Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, the Society of Publication Designers, and is a Graphis Master. His work is included in the permanent collections of the MoMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Letterform Archive. He is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale. In addition to Narrative Design, Kit is the co-author and designer of five books, including Typewise, Long May She Wave, 100 Baseball Icons, The Art of Gaman, and The Pentagram Papers.
