Clifton Meador combines writing, photography, printmaking, and design to make books that explore how narratives of culture, history, and place are the basis for identity. He received a BFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA in Book Arts from Purchase College.

His work is in many collections, including the Library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Yale Art of the Book collection. His work has been supported by grants from the Rubin Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Soros Foundation for Open Society, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He was twice awarded a NYFA fellowship, was a Fulbright Scholar to the Republic of Georgia, and was the 2013 recipient of the MCBA Book Prize.

He served as chair of the Art Department at Appalachian State University from 2014 to 2019, and is now a professor in the Graphic Design and Graphic Communications Management programs at Appalachian. Before coming to Appalachian in 2014, he led the MFA in Book and Paper in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College Chicago, collaboratively founded an experimental graduate program at SUNY New Paltz—the Visual Research Laboratory, and was director of Nexus Press in the 1980s. Before going to graduate school, he worked as a pressman at several commercial, literary, and small press production facilities, including Open Studio, Nexus Press, and J. B. Richards.