April Greiman

april greiman
“thinking about perception. i take perception
to mean not only the visual, from a fixed point,
but also the connection
of the body, the breath,
and of multiple perspectives to the symbols around
us, as well as their connection to
the space of the field where the
relationship activated...”
“if there was a very concrete symbol in a dream,
i’d sketch it, or i’d write down a word which
spoke the loudest. if the symbology was so
strong that i’d be in that dream for a couple of
weeks, then i’d write the entire dream down so
that i would always remember it...”
background
april greiman, born and raised in
metropolitan new york city in 1948,
is a rare individual in the world of
graphic design. she’s someone who
sets her own goals and so aspects
of greiman’s practice have little to
do proper definitions of graphic design. rather, most of which comes
from her research and personal
agenda. instead of following hardand fast rules or predictable solutions, what’s more valuable is the
duality, diversity, abstraction, experimentation, and intuition. greiman attained her bachelor of fine
arts at kansas city art institute and
later enrolled in basel design school
in switzerland in 1970. while everyone was hesitant toward the use of
computers, greiman saw the computer as “the real stroke of genius”,
a tool that provided infinite choice,
changes, and possibilities. greiman
later moved to los angeles in 1976
“my personal research is about what, in my heart,
i feel it is important to explore and discover...”
“i’ll always be designing. it’s not
what i do, it’s who i am...”
and was introduced to Edith Sullwold who directed greiman toward
research materials and ways to
learn mroe about color, myth, and
symbol. “that research became a
part of my waking consciousness
and daily agenda.” the reason for
such emphasis is that, when used
appropriately, color, myth, and symbol add meaning and content to
visual communication. greiman’s
definiton of design is all-inclusive
- “all form is is content. so are emotion, texture, words, symbols, color,
and technology”.
“basel was completely non-theoretical, a profound
educaiton in the perceptual. it was what i call my first
experience of zen, because most of the teachers didn’t
speak english, they taught in silence and i was teaching myself, which was a really invaluable experience...”
“you don’t have to give up your pencil when you
switch to computer design…the mac’s just
another pencil...”
description
april greiman’s works range across
a multitude of media - from printed
business cards to websites.
additional works
- shaping the future of healthcare
- inference corporation
- pacific design center/westweek
- pikes peak
- la county museum of art
- la olympics committee
- pc world magazine
- limbex and web compass
- computer visualizations
- lux and us west
- fresco restaurant
- cal state student union
- digital campfires
- japan pga gold club
- cover for 1988 aiga annual
studio identity
vitra: workspirit & bellini
lifetime television
sci-arc
walker art center
nicola
design quarterly #133
mak center
us postal serivce
miracle manor
wet magazine
cerritos center
dorland mtn arts colony
carlson-reges residence
vertigo
the china club
moma
urban revisions
california institute of arts
tse cashmere
sci-arc
april greiman has worked on identity
and publishing projects at sci-arc in
la since 1989. “my first commission
at sci-arc was to design the identity.
from then on i was responisble for
the majority of graphic material produced for the college.”
cerritos center
“the cerritos center for the performing arts in california was my first largescale ‘environmental’ project. the architect barton myers needed someone who could not only work with four-inch square ceramic tiles, but also
produce a graphic identity and stationery system. he trusted me enough
to make the leap from two to three dimensions.”
design quarterly #133:
“does it make sense?”
“design quarterly is a publication of
the walker art center in minneapolis,
directed to the international design
community. each issue takes on a
single topic, or occasionally represents the work of a single designer.
mickey friedman offered me an issue of my own to see what i woulde
do. my idea for the issue was to do
it as a 2’ x 6’ poster that folds down
to fit in a sleeve the size of a regular
copy of the magazine. the poster
was to be a personal experiment in
which oen side was a life-size collage created entirely on the mac,
and the other side carried a variety
of related text and video images.”
april greiman is internationally recognized as one of the
world’s most innovative and influential designers. today,
she brings a unique approach that blends technology
and science with symbol and myth, words and images
with texture and space. her expertise lies in color-surfaces-materials consulting, trans-media identity, as well as
branding projects.
“...symbols – i include letters here – are not only stand-ins for a concept, or elements in a
whole, but things in themselves. for instance, ‘O’ is not only a letter, but also something
which one can step into, a void, a condition in space that relates to the body; ‘O’ is also
related to the breath – when spoken, it hollows the throat, hangs, then evaporates in the
air. different letters and sounds are directly connected to various organ functions in the hu-
“I’ve always been a science-friendly person, but also
man body. likewise, a word can be an image, not merely appended to an ‘image’ to explain
fascinated with magic. with technology today we can
it. a sheet of paper isn’t merely a neutral receiver of symbols, but a field or space that is tra-
float ideas, text, and images in time and space.”
versed. the eye walks, jumps, journeys through, inside and outside of it. it is where relation-
analysis/conclusions
ships are established, not simply communicated.”
references
Liz Farrelly. 1998. April Greiman: Floating Ideas into Time and Space. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications
April Greiman. 1990. Hybrid Imagery: The fusion of technology and graphic
design. New York. Watson-Guptill Publications
AIGA. 1998. April Greiman: You can’t fake the Cha-Cha. The American Institute of Graphic Arts. http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?ContentID=2263
(accessed 05/23/06)
Erfert Neilson. April Greiman: Riding A New Wave. http://www.mkgraphic.com/
greiman.html (accessed 05/23/06)