Based in Brooklyn, New York, Tod Lippy is the creator of the award-winning nonprofit arts publication Esopus (2003–2018) and executive director of The Esopus Foundation Ltd.; the editor and cofounder of Scenario: The Magazine of Screenwriting Art (1994–97); and the founder, designer, and coeditor of publicsfear magazine (1992–94). His 2000 book, Projections 11: New York Film-Makers on Film-Making, was published by Faber & Faber, and his 1999 short film, Cookies, was selected for competition in more than 20 film festivals in the U.S. and abroad. 

Tod’s practice as a designer is highlighted most prominently in the 25 issues of Esopus, which The New York Times’s David Carr declared “a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty, less flipped through than stared at” in 2004. His design work has also been featured in a number of books — including the Graphis Design Annual, Print Design Annual, Essentials of Visual Communication (Laurence King, 2008), and Art Direction + Editorial Design (Abrams, 2007) — and in exhibitions at venues including the Walker Art Center, Rome’s Contemporary Art Museum, and the Casino Luxembourg. Esopus has been the subject of dedicated exhibitions at de Appel Art Center in Amsterdam (2016) and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas (2017). Tod’s freelance design work includes book covers, art catalogs, and CD packaging.

From 1998 to 2002, Tod was an adjunct faculty member at the School of Visual Arts M.F.A. Design program, where he developed the graduate seminar “The Magazine Workshop.” He has since lectured at many educational and cultural institutions, including the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Nasher Sculpture Center, MTV Networks, Aesop, Bennington College, Rice University, New York University, Yale University, USC’s Roski School of Fine Arts, the American Library Association, and the AIGA. He has been interviewed for a number of journals, radio programs, and books, including Becoming a Graphic Designer (Wiley, 2005); Fresh Dialogue: Making Magazines (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007); and the NPR program From Scratch. In 2018, Tod partnered with Soho House to create the event series “In Process,” for which he interviewed creative people from a wide range of disciplines — including photographer Tina Barney, designer Fernando Santangelo, journalist/podcaster Leon Neyfakh, and archivist Michelle Elligott — about their creative process.

From 2009 to 2012, he served as curator and director of Esopus Space, an alternative exhibition and performance venue in New York City, where he mounted 18 exhibitions and staged 30 events. Tod also curated the exhibitions “Mark Hogancamp” (2006) and “Don Bachardy: One-Day Stands” (2008; jointly organized with Matthew Higgs) at White Columns in New York City; and “Mark Hogancamp: Women of Marwencol” (2014; co-curated with Janet Hicks) and “Golden Years: Photographs by Ed Rosenbaum” (2016) at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. In late 2019, he formed Summon Art, a curatorial service that organizes revolving exhibitions of art by emerging contemporary artists in offices and workspaces in New York City.

In August 2018, Tod was awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, during which he completed a series of drawings related to Esopus that were published in the fall of 2018. His first album, Here We Are, was released on October 29, 2019; its lead single, “Good Start,” was selected by KCRW as the influential station’s “Today’s Top Tune” for September 2, 2019. “Names,” the first single from his second album, Yearbook, was released as a digital single and video, as well as a lathe-cut vinyl limited-edition by independent label We Are Busy Bodies in November 2020; the album, called “an exceptional sophomore effort” by Take Effect, was released on June 25, 2021. “Midterms,” a 6-song EP, dropped in the summer of 2022. Its first single, “Assorted Hits 11,” was released as a limited-edition cassingle in April and a lathe-cut clear-vinyl limited edition (with 50 hand-painted covers by Steve Keene) of the entire EP arrived in August.

Tod’s third full-length album, Closer Than They Appear, consists of his covers of songs from musical acts including Lucinda Williams, the Alan Parsons Project, and Low, was released on November 4, 2022.