Chip Kidd created the first-edition cover of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel.
Kidd was a junior designer at Alfred A. Knopf when Crichton submitted the manuscript in 1990. He was asked to suggest living dinosaurs without showing a flesh-and-blood animal, an unusual challenge for a science-fiction cover.
After trying ideas involving shadows, footprints, and dinosaur skin, Kidd visited the American Museum of Natural History. The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex inspired the famous black dinosaur silhouette. The underlying reference came from an illustration by paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn.
The design was intended as a wraparound jacket extending across the spine and back, making the dinosaur feel too large to be contained on the front alone. A common mix-up is crediting the film’s logo or poster artists; Kidd designed the novel’s original book cover, while the movie used the same basic imagery in its branding.