Kit Hinrichs,  Principal, Studio Hinrichs

Kit is a founding member of Spark, the designer of Spark's brand and related marketing and communications media. He serves on the Spark Executive Board and is a swell guy too. Kit studied at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California. He began his career doing both illustration and design in New York. After working in several New York design offices he formed an independent design consultancy with Anthony Russell. In 1976 Kit and his wife Linda moved to San Francisco and formed a national partnership called Jonson, Pedersen, Hinrichs & Shakery. In 1986 the San Francisco office merged with Pentagram.

Kit's accumulated design experience incorporates a wide range of projects. At Pentagram he led a design team with expertise in branding corporate communications, promotion, packaging, editorial, and exhibition design. In 2009 he formed Studio Hinrichs in San Francisco. He and Delphina Hirasuna have created a lively new, must-read design blog, @Issue.

Kit has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford Design Conference, AIGA National Conferences, and numerous other design associations and universities across the globe. Kit's work has been honored and published widely, and several of his pieces are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and San Francisco, and the Library of Congress. Kit has also been an instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco and the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

He is co-author of five books: 100 American Flags: A Unique Collection of Old Glory Memorabilia, Vegetables, Stars & Stripes, Typewise and Long May She Wave. Kit is an AIGA fellow, a past executive board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. Currently, he is a trustee of Art Center College of Design and serves on the Design and Architecture Accessions committee at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Kit was recently the recipient of the distinguished AIGA medal in recognition of his exceptional achievements in the field of graphic design and visual communication