Kit Hinrichs studied at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California. He served as principal in several design offices in New York and San Francisco, and spent 23 years (1986–2009) as a partner of Pentagram, an international design consultancy, before opening Studio Hinrichs, an independent design firm in San Francisco, in 2009. His design experience incorporates a wide range of projects, including corporate communications, brand development, promotion, packaging, catalogs, environmental graphics, editorial and exhibition design.

In addition to teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the California College of the Arts and the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Kit has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford Design Conference, AIGA National Conferences, the HOW Conference, Art Center College of Design, and numerous other design associations and universities worldwide. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Museum of Design, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He is co-author of five books, including Typewise, Long May She Wave and The Pentagram Papers.

Throughout his career, he has co-founded @issue: The Journal of Business and Design, chaired the AIGA California Show, co-chaired the Alliance Graphique Internationale San Francisco Congress, chaired the AIGA Business Conference and San Francisco Design Lecture Series and launched the @issue Design Conference. Kit is a recipient of the prestigious AIGA medal, in recognition of his exceptional achievements in the field of graphic design and visual communication. He is also a past executive board member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale, and a trustee of Art Center College of Design since 1996.

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