丁聪开始主要是创作漫画，同时也编辑过电影画报，从事美术编辑工作。在内地和香港期间还设计过舞台布景。这些经验对他为小说作插图很有帮助。
Ding Cong started his career by drawing cartoons and helping to edit film magazines and pictorials. In the interior and Hong Kong he also designed stage sets and costumes, an experience which stands him in good stead when illustrating stories from the past.
If an experience stands a person in good stead, it is or will be of great use to them:
Getting some work experience now will stand you in good stead (for) when you apply for a permanent job.
太平洋战争爆发以后，他从香港回到内地参加“香港受难”展览，并随剧团到各地写生，接触到当时难民的生活，画出他们困苦的处境。
After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1942, he went back to the interior and contributed to the exhibition“Hong Kong in Torment.”His travels with a repertory company brought him in touch with social outcasts, whose sufferings he often took as his theme.
如他在成都曾为当时妓女的悲惨生活画了一幅“花街”，还画了其它揭露战时国民党腐败社会的作品。由于他的贡献，他成为当时中国美术家协会的一位杰出代表。
Thus his “The Red Light District” and other drawings of social phenomena portray the hard life of prostitutes in Chengdu as well as the rampant corruption in wartime China. In recognition of his outstanding work he was made a member of the Modern Art Association.
丁聪是一位多才多艺、技巧全面的画家，特别擅长的是漫画和书籍插图。一幅好的插图不仅能反映出作家所说的内容，而且能加深作品的艺术深度。丁聪正是成功地做到这一点。
Ding Cong is an all-round artist but above all a brilliant cartoonist and illustrator. A good illustration should do more than simply reproduce what a writer has said: it should give it a new dimension by adding the artist's insight.
他的独特风格和简洁手法是长期探索的果实。他作画速度惊人，画面简洁明了，而这正是他苦心经营的成绩。
Over the years he has evolved his distinctive style and simplified his compositions. His drawings can be recognized at a glance. The speed with which he now works is based on painstaking practice.
丁聪的老朋友们都叫他“小丁”，这不仅是因为他年少成名，而且是因为他“不失其赤子之心”，为人坦率、真诚、正直。他到哪里，人们都会听到他那爽朗的笑声。他的作品的风格正反映了他本人的性格。
Ding Cong's old friends still call him Little Ding, not simply because he won fame under this name but because of his lovable childlike qualities.
He is frank, enthusiastic and straightforward, full of fun and with no malice in his make-up. Wherever he goes we hear laughter.“The style is the man”— this applies to both writers and artists.
