April Greiman
Born
April Greiman, in her studio at Made In Space.la
Born (1948-03-22) March 22, 1948 (age 76)
NationalityAmerican
OccupationDesigner
Known forOne of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool
Notable workDesign Quarterly #133: Does it Make Sense?, Pompidou, MOMA, LACMA, SFMOMA, 1986

April Greiman (born March 22, 1948) is an American designer widely recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool. Greiman is also credited, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers, with helping to import the European New Wave design style to the US during the late 70s and early 80s."[1][2] According to design historian Steven Heller, “April Greiman was a bridge between the modern and postmodern, the analog and the digital.” “She is a pivotal proponent of the ‘new typography’ and new wave that defined late twentieth-century graphic design.”[3] Her art combines her Swiss design training with West Coast postmodernism.[4]

Greiman finds the title graphic designer too limiting and prefers to call herself a "transmedia artist". Her work has inspired designers to develop the computer as a tool of design and to be curious and searching in their design approach. Her style includes typelayering, where groups of letterforms are sandwiched and layered, but also made to float in space along with other 'objects in space' such as shapes, photos, illustrations and color swatches. She creates a sense of depth and dynamic, in particular by combining graphic elements through making extensive use of Apple Macintosh technology.[4] Los Angeles Times called her graphic style "an experiment in creating 'hybrid imagery'".

Early life and education

Born on March 22, 1948, April Greiman grew up in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. Her father was an early computer programmer, systems analyst, and founder and president of The Ventura Institute of Technology.[5] Her only sibling, Paul, became a meteorologist and specialist in climatic and atmospheric interplanetary modeling.[6]

Greiman first studied graphic design as an undergraduate at the Kansas City Art Institute, from 1966–1970. She then went on to study at the Allgemeine Kunstgewerbeschule Basel, now known as the Basel School of Design (Schule für Gestaltung Basel) in Basel, Switzerland (1970–1971). She was also a student of Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart, and she was influenced by the International Style and by Weingarts' introduction to the style later known as New Wave, an aesthetic that moved away from a Modernist heritage.[7]

Career

After completing her studies at the Kansas City Art Institute, Greiman worked as a freelance designer and worked directly with the curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Greiman moved to Los Angeles in 1976 where she established the multi-disciplinary approach where she "...blends technology, science, word and image with color and space...".[8][9] She directed her first design studio April Greiman, Inc. from 1978–2004.[10][11] During the 1970s, she rejected the belief among many contemporary designers that computers and digitalization would compromise the International Typographic Style; instead, she exploited pixelation and other digitization "errors" as integral parts of digital art, a position she has held throughout her career.

Upon her relocation from New York City to Los Angeles, she met photographer-artist Jayme Odgers, who became a significant influence on Greiman. Together, they designed a famous Cal Arts poster in 1977 that became an icon of the California New Wave.[12] In 1982, Greiman became head of the design department at the California Institute of the Arts, also known as Cal Arts.[13] In 1984, she lobbied successfully to change the department name to Visual Communications, as she felt the term “graphic design” would prove too limiting to future designers. In that year, she also became a student herself and investigated in greater depth the effects of technology on her own work.[14]

She then returned to full-time practice and acquired her first Macintosh computer.[15] She would later take the Grand Prize in MacWorld's First Macintosh Masters in Art Competition. April also contributed to the design of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, by creating a memorable poster of running legs silhouetted against a square of bright blue sky in collaboration with Jayme Odgers.[16]: 39  An early adopter of this computer as noted in Apple's Mac @ 30 video,[17] Greiman produced an issue of Design Quarterly in 1986, notable in its development of graphic design.[11] Entitled Does it make sense?, the edition was edited by Mildred Friedman and published by the MIT Press / Walker Art Center. "She re-imagined the magazine as a fold-out artwork to almost three-by-six feet. The poster must be carefully unfolded three times across, nine times down. It contained a life-size, MacVision-generated image of her outstretched naked body adorned with symbolic images and text— a provocative gesture, which emphatically countered the objective, rational and masculine tendencies of modernist design." Greiman has said about the poster's unusual format and title “Hopefully, someone will make some sense out of this… The sense it has for me is that it’s new and yet old,… it’s a magazine, which is a poster, which is an object, which is… crazy.” The poster was also launched as a complement to the Walker Art Center's new Everyday Art Gallery.[18] In 1995, the US Postal Service launched a stamp designed by Greiman to commemorate the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Women's Voting Rights).[19]

In 1997, Greiman and her husband, architect Michael Rotondi, purchased a 1940's motel near Palm Springs, Miracle Manor, and turned it into a showcase for her three-dimensional design of space in natural landscapes.[11][20]

In 2000, Greiman became a partner at the Los Angeles office of the design firm Pentagram, leaving after a few years in the role.[21][22] In 2005, she began her current Los Angeles-based design consultancy Made In Space.[10][11]

Teaching

In 1982, Greiman became the Director of the Visual Communications Program of the California Institute of the Arts’ design department.[14] In 1992, she was adjunct faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture until 2009 when she moved on to the Woodbury University School of Architecture until 2018.[citation needed] In January 2019, Greiman became a tenured professor of design at the University of Southern California Roski School of Art and Design.[23]

With four honorary doctorates, April Greiman is seen as one of the "ultimate risktakers" for her unorthodox and progressive approach to design by embracing new technologies.[24]

Honors and awards

8200 square foot public art commission on two walls of a mixed-use building and metro station located in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Notable works and accomplishments

Collections

Collections of the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Centre Pompidou

Monographs

Keynote speeches

Professional societies and positions

Solo exhibitions

View of Greiman's solo exhibition Drive-by Shooting: April Greiman Digital Photography at thePasadena Museum of California Art in 2006.

In 2006, the Pasadena Museum of California Art mounted a one-woman show of her digital photography entitled: Drive-by Shooting: April Greiman Digital Photography.[38] She was also in the major group show at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris called Elle@Centre Pompidou.[39] In 2007, Greiman completed her largest ever work: a public mural, Hand Holding a Bowl of Rice, spanning "seven stories of two building facades marking the entrance to the Wilshire Vermont Metro Station in Los Angeles."[40] In 2014, Greiman collaborated with the London based artist-run organization Auto Italia South East along with a group of artists including Metahaven, in an exhibition POLYMYTH x Miss Information. The exhibition program was included in the external listings for Frieze Art Fair.[41]

View of installation from group exhibition Designing Modern Women 1890–1990, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, New York, October 5, 2013 – October 19, 2014

Selected group exhibitions

April Greiman created the identity and stationery system for Coop Himmelb(l)au, a cooperative architectural design firm, known for their experimental, complex, and asymmetrical approach to architecture.

Selected clients

Greiman, known for her experimental use of media such as photographic collage and still video imagery, was commissioned to create issue 133 of the long-running journal Design Quarterly published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

Posters

Billboard for the exhibition for Graphic Design in America designed by April Greiman. Greiman was also featured in the traveling exhibition.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Biography, April Greiman". AIGA. American Association of Graphic Arts. Archived from the original on October 18, 2018. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
  2. ^ Madley, Michelle. "ACAD presents prestigious international designer: April Greiman" (PDF). Alberta College of Art + Design, Calgary, Alberta. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 12, 2010.
  3. ^ "The Masters Series: April Greiman". School of Visual Arts (SVA). Retrieved June 28, 2018.[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ a b The Thames and Hudson encyclopaedia of 20th century design and designers. London: Thames and Hudson. 1993. pp. 96. ISBN 0500202699. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  5. ^ Searles, Jack (April 19, 1994). "Institute of Technology Moves to Larger Quarters". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  6. ^ Greiman, Paul (1981). "A Martian General Circulation Experiment with Large Topography". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 38. American Metrological Association: 3–29. Bibcode:1981JAtS...38....3P. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1981)038<0003:AMGCEW>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1520-0469.
  7. ^ McCoy, Katherine (1990). "American Graphic Design Expression: The Evolution of American Typography". Design Quarterly (149): 3–22. doi:10.2307/4091231. JSTOR 4091231. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011. Retrieved March 11, 2011.
  8. ^ Flask, Dominic. "April Greiman : Design Is History". www.designishistory.com. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  9. ^ "Targeted News Service". February 13, 2013. ProQuest 1287348251.
  10. ^ a b "home". madeinspace. Retrieved December 15, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d Twemlow, Alice. "Does it Make Sense? ( take two ) Exhibition Catalog". School of Visual Arts.
  12. ^ Whiteson, Leon (October 9, 1988). "A Designing Woman With Radical Ideas April Greiman Says Her Graphics Style Is 'an Experiment in Creating "Hybrid Imagery"'". Los Angeles Times.
  13. ^ Fiell, Charlotte; Peter Fiell (2003). Graphic design for the 21st century. Taschen. p. 244. ISBN 978-3-8228-1605-9.
  14. ^ a b Artsy, Avishay (June 20, 2021). "California Continues to Rewrite the Rules of Design". Hyperallergic. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  15. ^ "Medalists: April Greiman". American Institute of Graphic Arts. Archived from the original on January 2, 2011. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
  16. ^ a b Greiman, April; Farrelly, Liz (1990). Hybrid Imagery. New York: Watson-Guptill. ISBN 0823025187.
  17. ^ Apple - Mac 30 years of innovation, retrieved December 15, 2021
  18. ^ "Minnesota by Design – Design Quarterly 133". March 21, 2015. Archived from the original on March 21, 2015. Retrieved December 18, 2023.
  19. ^ Farrelly, Liz (1998). April Greiman: floating ideas into time and space. Watson-Guptill. p. 61.
  20. ^ Giovannini, Joseph (July 9, 1998). "Design Notebook; Motel Makeover: No Room for Kitsch". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  21. ^ Administrator, System (September 29, 2000). "Pentagram broadens its scope with new recruits". Design Week. Retrieved December 15, 2021.
  22. ^ "A Day at Pentagram New York: an insight into the partners, politics and personalities". www.itsnicethat.com. Retrieved December 15, 2021.
  23. ^ "April Greiman Roski Appointment | Roski School of Art and Design". roski.usc.edu. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  24. ^ Carter, Rob (1989). American Typography Today. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. p. 56. ISBN 0-442-22106-1.
  25. ^ "3rd Annual Vesta Awards. Graphic designer, April Greiman, winner. :: Woman's Building". collections.otis.edu. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  26. ^ "April Greiman". aiga.org. America Institute of Graphic Arts. Archived from the original on June 27, 2018. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  27. ^ "Medalists: April Greiman". American Institute of Graphic Arts. Archived from the original on January 2, 2011. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
  28. ^ a b Ten Years—A Decade of Design—Chrysler Design Awards. Wilton, Connecticut: The Magazine Works, Inc. 2002. p. 98.
  29. ^ "the Society of Typographic Arts". the Society of Typographic Arts. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021. Retrieved December 15, 2021.
  30. ^ "STA Honors: April Greiman". Society of Typographic Arts. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  31. ^ a b Greiman, April; Janigian, Aris (2001). Something from Nothing. East Sussex, UK: RotoVision SA. ISBN 2-88046-547-8.
  32. ^ Rotondi, Michael; Reeve, Margaret; Greiman, April (1997). From the Center: Design Process at Sci-Arc. New York, New York: The Monacelli Press, Inc. ISBN 1-885254-34-2.
  33. ^ NEA Annual Report 1987 (PDF). National Endowment for the Arts. 1987. p. 18. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  34. ^ Greiman, April (2021). WhiteSpace: April Greiman Photography. Los Angeles: April Greiman. ISBN 978-0-57-887250-6. Retrieved March 5, 2022.
  35. ^ Greiman, April (2006). Drive-by Shooting: April Greiman Digital Photography. Los Angeles: Pasadena Museum of California Art/April Greiman – Made in Space. ISBN 1-4243-1448-8. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  36. ^ Farrelly, Liz; Greiman, April (January 1, 1998). April Greiman: floating ideas into time and space. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 0823012018. OCLC 40459397.
  37. ^ Greiman, April; Poynor, Rick; Arc en rêve centre d'architecture (January 1, 1994). April Greiman: it'snotwhatyouthinkitis = cen'estpascequevouscroyez. Bordeaux; Zürich; New York, N.Y.: Arc en rêve centre d'architecture ; Artemis. ISBN 3760884172. OCLC 31347967.
  38. ^ "Pasadena Museum of California Art in Los Angeles Past Exhibitions". Archived from the original on February 25, 2011.
  39. ^ "elles@centrepompidou women artists in the collections of the National Modern Art Museum". Archived from the original on March 15, 2011. Retrieved March 11, 2011.
  40. ^ "AGI : Members : Greiman". Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved March 28, 2011.
  41. ^ Kay, Jean (November 20, 2014). "An overview of Frieze 2014 on the fringe". AQNB. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  42. ^ Rawsthorn, Alice (October 17, 2011). "With a Big Boost From Technology". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2021.

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