Trivas' illustration career dates to the 1950s, when she supplied album art for recording artists Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, and others. In the sixties and seventies, she worked as a designer in print and television advertising, usually with animator Fred Mogubgub. For children's books, she illustrated activity books, Judy Blume's The Pain and the Great One and The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, a biography of Helen Keller, and the Maple Street Six and Fourth Floor Twins series.