April Greiman

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pr i l

gre iman

Abbie Dolores Labonville

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I’ve built an entire career on mistakes.

April Greiman

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orn in March of 1948, April Greiman became known for her “New Wave” design, and one of the first to use the computer as their tool. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute where she achieved a degree in graphic design, and furthered her education at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland where she learned from the Masters, Wolfgang Weingart and Armin Hofman.

After Greiman moved to

Los Angelos in 1976, she became the head of the design department at the California Institute of the Arts in 1982.

Greiman’s original work consisited of altering ways to view 2-D work on a flat surface, which is often seen in her poster designs. It wasn’t until 1984 that she first learned to use a Macintosh computer and started to embrace it as her design tool.

(Left) Poster for SciArc, Changing Concepts in Space and Architecture, 1986 (Right) “The Modern Poster” Poster for the MOMA exhibition, 1988 Poster for Waner Brothers records, 1982

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“Does It Make Sense?”

Poster/folder with slipcase, Walker Art Center, Design Quarterly, 1986

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The Mac is just another pencil April Greiman, 1992

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pril was introduced to the Macintosh computer for the first time at Macy’s department store in 1984. She was so intrigued, she spent hours playing around until she was dragged out of the store. Soon enough, in 1985, she purchased her own Macintosh computer and her signiture pixelated designs were born.

Greiman’s process included taking work created on the Macintosh, and mixing it with traditional work: “We weave the computer in and out of our working process”stated Greiman in the book Designers on Mac. She was also able to take her previous knowledge of video and combine it with computer technology to create pieces such as TV spots for Lifetime Television.

(Left) Poster The University of California Los Angelos, Summer Sessions, 1991 (Right) Actual screen image of the entire 2’ x 6’ collage, in its “reduce to fit” size on screen, 1986 Lifetime Television cable sequence, 1985

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Design must seduce, shape, and perhaps mo

ore importantly, create an emotional response

(Fig11)

Poster for SciArc, Poster for SciArc summer programs, Changing Concepts in Space and 1991 Architecture, 1986 Poster for Fortuny Bottom L-R Poster for Los Angelos Museum, Venice Olympic Games, 1984 “Pacific Wave” exhibition, 1987 Top L-R

Poster for LAICA “Snow White and the fashion show & clothing 7 Pixels.” A poster sale, 1896 announcing a talk at the Maryland Institute Poster for an exhibition at the Los Angelos Museum The CalArts view book College of Art, 1986 of Art, 1981 is a tabloid size review of CalArts, printed on Colaboration with newspaper, 1979 Jayme Odgers. Cover for an issue of WET Magazine, 1979 Cover for Art Direction Magazine, 1978

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April Greiman not only pioneered new styles of art, she changed the way we see design. Before Greiman’s pixelated, New Wave brightly colored works, design was very structured. During her time at Basel, she learned the importance of typography, and used it to her advantage. She had broken all the previous rules and made type into different sizes, curved, slanted, ect.

In the beginning was watching words move...

Well, perhaps this is a slight exaggeration, but, what the hell. It’s hard not to give Ivan and Tom credit for the genesis of many a great typographic expedition, for much of the smartest design for the last fifty years (sigh...).

Let’s face itonly the really witty make us !claim only the really intelligent make us ?uestion only the really talented make the words not only move but s April Greiman

(Above) A quote from Aprl Greiman in Watching Words Move, written by Ivan Chermayedd and Tom Geismar. This was typical design before Greiman broke the rules of orignial typography

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ybrid Imagery is a collection of April Greiman’s work which she had written and designed herself. In her book, she explains the fusion of technology and graphic design. It spans five distinct areas of development: The

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oday, Greiman runs a design consulting company called Made In Space located in Los Angelos, where she not only hires graphic designers, but those who are specialits in their fields, such as webmasters, researchers, and producers. They specialize in providing transmedia identitiy, architectural branding, space, and color to clients. Some of her clients include Accenture Tower in Minneapolis, Madame Tussaud’s in Hollywood, and The Great Park in Irvine, California.

layering process which focuses on playing with the illusion of time and space and transwforming two dimensional images; Video to show her transition from traditional work to digital; Macintosh to show how the computer plays an important roll in her design process; Hybrid Imagery which is the idea of fusing together traditional and digital work; and Cycle of Discovery, which explains Greiman’s continuous discoveries in design.

(Left) Hybrid Imagrery book design, 1990 Watson Guptill Publications (Right) Image clip from Greiman’s business website for design consulting, “Made in Space”

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(Above) April Greiman, self-titled bullethead, 1997

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Designed and Written by Abbie Dolores Labonville Composed in Avenir Light typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988 and Krungthem typface designed by Susan Kare in 1984 Copyright Š Abbie Dolores Labonville, Portland, Maine, Maine College of Art

Greiman, April. Hybrid Imagry. New York: Watson - Guptill Publications. 1990. Print Chermayeff, Ivan and Tom Geismar. Watching Words Move. San Francisco: Chonicle Books. 2006. Print Igarashi, Takenobu and Diane Burns.

Designers on Mac. Tokyo: Graphic-sha Publishing Co. Ltd. 1992. Print