from new york to L.A. via basel

After failing to get into art school, April Greiman applied and was accepted at the Kansas City Art Institute. There she was introduced to Modernist principles, which became her first serious design influence and inevitably led her to their mecca, the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. In addition to her very rigorous academic training there, Greiman was also exposed to New Wave experiments in Wolfgang Weingart’s studio—and eventually toward the looming gap that she would help fill by her hybridization of typography and imagery.

Poster with words Temporal, Contemporary, Spatial, Dynamic, images of human eye and ear

April Greiman and Tom Ingall. Temporal, Contemporary, Spatial, Dynamic. Poster, 1977. Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt.

WET Magazine cover. Collage with a face with covered eyes in the middle

Greiman & Odgers. WET Magazine, Sept/Oct, cover, 1971.

A cover for Art Direction Magazine by April Greiman and Raul Vega
CalArts poster. Various geometric forms in different colors

April Greiman and Raul Vega. Art Direction Magazine, July, cover, 1978.

Greiman & Odgers—Poster CalArts, 1977.

Please please me. Any one will do! Poster for Pacific Coast Films

Please please me. Any one will do! Poster for Pacific Coast Films, 1977.

Created with Sketch.

the people who are designing photoshop or after effects are not the ones designing with it. they are not solving the kinds of problems we are. so you have to wade through and get stuck in somebody else’s quicksand of engineering and technology. —april greiman

April Greiman “blur-mode” self-portrait. A blurry image of an artist with red hear, looking sideways

April Greiman “blur-mode” self-portrait, 2009.

floating in space

After returning from Europe, April Greiman settled in Los Angeles, where she worked as a freelancer and developed her style: the signature layering of type, exaggerated spacing, random collages and geometric shapes. This would eventually cease to be a mere echo of Weingart’s Swiss Punk and become her own contribution to West Coast postmodernism.

 

Advertisement for Di-Zin opening exhibition. Words Di-Zin on a black background
Poster for Pacific design center. Words Your Turn, My Turn and a number 1983

Advertisement for Di-Zin opening exhibition, 1987.

The modern poster for MOMA with the words The Modern Poster

Poster for Pacific design center, 1983. Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt.

Identity and stationery system for Coop Himmelblau. Black letter O and a thick red line, animated

Identity and stationery system for Coop Himmelblau, 1990.

The modern poster for MOMA, 1988.

Created with Sketch.

it makes sense if you give it sense. i love this notion, which exists in physics as well, that the observer is the observed, and the observed is the observer. the tools and technologies begin to dictate what and how you see something.
—april greiman

April Greiman, self-titled Bullethead. An artist with shaved head looking into camera
April Greiman, self-titled Bullethead

April Greiman, self-titled Bullethead, 1997.

beyond design

Despite having all the skills, April Greiman doesn’t like to be called a graphic designer. She conceives of herself as an artist, teacher, thinker and desert explorer (why limit yourself to one designation?). More importantly, why limit others? In the early 1980s, Greiman became head of the graphic design department at the California Institute of the Arts, and one of her first suggestions was to change the department name to “visual communications.” The point of the gesture became obvious only later, as the world came to realize that technology had redefined the profession once and for all. 

3d Glasses, April Greiman—Reinhold

3d Glasses, April Greiman—Reinhold, 1986. Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt.

Ron Rezek Lighting and Furniture poster
Invitation to Mak Center

Ron Rezek Lighting and Furniture, 1984.

Invitation, Mak Center. Photo courtesy of Cooper Hewitt.

Poster for CalArts imitating a newspaper cutting. View

Poster for CalArts.

Created with Sketch.

i’m a closet buddhist. —april greiman

Proposed magazine cover. An homage to El Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge poster

Proposed magazine cover, 1976–81.

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