Zack Motrunecs

Intro to Type
TTR 11:00

TECHNOLOGY IN A NEW DESIGN ERA

 APRIL GREIMAN
HYBRID IMAGERY
2–3

DESIGN QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

DOES IT MAKE SENSE?
4–5

POSTERS AND LAYOUTS

TECHNOLOGY MEETS GRAPHIC DESIGN
6–7

1
 Greiman sees herself as a
natural bridge between the
Modernist tradition and future
generations of designers.
Given her classical education
at KCAI and graduate studies
with Hoffman and Weingart
at Basel, she possesses the
knowledge and skills of the
Modernist tradition. And yet
she is a vocal advocate of the
new aesthetic, defending both
the visual and conceptual
aesthetics, as well as new
technologies, to skeptics.
“In the tradition of graphic
design in the twentieth
century, you had to be either
a great typographer, a great
designer/illustrator, or a great
APRIL GREIMAN
2 3
poster designer. Now we
are confronted with motion
graphics, the World Wide Web,
and interactive applications.
The world has changed and
the field is changing to meet
it.” Greiman is adamant that
we must be open to new
paradigms, to new metaphors,
to a whole new spirit of design:
“It’s not just graphic design
anymore. We just don’t have a
new name for it yet.”
New paradigms emerge
in Greiman’s own studio
including what may be a new
model of the contemporary
design studio, reflective of
cultural shifts. Greiman acts
as both a generalist and a
HYBRID IMAGERY
specialist. “I don’t hire graphic
designers anymore. The idea
of many designers working in
virtual isolation is no longer
relevant. I hire collaborators
who are specialists in their
own fields — a web master, a
researcher, a production artist
— depending on the project.”
As a generalist, she is involved
in all phases of the projects.
As a specialist, the concept
and design are ultimately
her own. In this new studio
structure, each collaborator is
an expert in his or her field,
with Greiman as the tie that
binds. In order to expand her
research into new technologies
and image generation, Greiman
created Greimanski Labs as
a conceptual offshoot of her
studio. She describes the
laboratory as a place for
research and exploration in
the development of non-
commercial images and 4
projects. Regardless of client,
the lab works in a variety of
media ranging from traditional
photography to new tools and
technologies.
Photos:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The
Fusion of Technology and Graphic Design
By April Greiman.
Text:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The
Fusion of Technology and Graphic Design
By April Greiman.
 Photos:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The Fusion
of Technology and Graphic Design By April
Greiman.
1
A poster designed using mixed media.
Most of the image was captured by
photographing an image on a screen.
2
A poster designed for the California
institute of the Arts.
3
Cover design for the Los Angeles based
Wet Magazine.
4 Japanese papers, cutouts
A poster designed for the Museum of
Modern Art.
1 2
6 7
April Greiman is best known
for her use of mixed media
within her designs. Much of
her early work used many
different forms of paper and
other organic materials,
collaged to form her design.
Her cover design for WET
Magazine used a xeroxed
photograph combined with
from magazines, and
airbrushing, The whole piece
was then photographed as
a single image for four color
3 4
seperation. When CalArts
invited her to direct its graphic
design program in 1982, she
committed herself to exploring
design education and also
gained access to state-of-
the-art video and digitizing
equipment. She immersed
herself in being an educator
as well as in the new media,
spending her spare time
traversing the digital terrain
in a quest for image-making
potential. She began using
video and analogue computers
to hybridize, combining
different elements through the
new media. Greiman knew
intuitively that the field of
graphic design was rapidly
changing and that emerging
technologies would soon
be integrated into everyday
design practice. In 1984
she lobbied successfully to
change the department name
to Visual Communications,
feeling that the term “graphic
design” would prove too
limiting to future designers.
POSTERS AND LAYOUTS
TECHNOLOGY MEETS GRAPHIC DESIGN
Later that year, with her
business booming, she
decided to switch gears and
become a student rather than
an educator, to study the
effect of technology on her
own work. She returned to
full-time practice and acquired
her first Macintosh. Also in
1984, Greiman also completed
a poster for Ron Rezek titled
“Iris Light” that was significant
for its innovative use of video
imagery and integration of
New Wave typography with
classical design elements.
This work incorporated a
still video image at a time
when this meant shooting
a traditional photograph
off the monitor using a
35mm camera. “Iris Light”
represented a turning point in
Greiman’s work: it is the first
hybrid piece incorporating
digital technology that
Greiman felt was conceptually
and aesthetically successful.
Text:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The
Fusion of Technology and Graphic Design
By April Greiman.
 Greiman saw Design Quarterly
#133 as an opportunity not
only to present her digital work
but to ask a larger question
of the work and the medium:
Does it make sense? Reading
Wittgenstein on the topic, she
identified with his conclusion:
“It makes sense if you give it
sense.” She says, “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, or how the
outcome is predictable. These
ideas bring back the kid in
me, that very pure curiosity.”
Greiman’s piece challenged
existing notions of what a
magazine should be. Rather
than the standard thirty-two-
page sequence, she reformatted
the piece as a poster that
folded out to almost three by six
feet. On the front is an image
of Greiman’s digitized, naked
body amid layers of interacting
images and text. On the back,
colorful atmospheric spatial
video images are interspersed
with thoughtful comments
and painstaking notations
on the digital process — a
virtual landscape of text and
image. Beyond considering
whether digital technologies
made sense, the Design
Quarterly poster seemed to
embody the disillusionment of
a nation deeply wounded by
the Vietnam war and shaped
by the growth of feminism,
spiritualism, Eastern religion,
Jungian archetypes, and
dream symbolism. “Does It
Make Sense?” Was also an
astounding technical feat. The
process of integrating digitized
video images and bitmapped
type was not unlike pulling
teeth in the early days of
Macintosh and MacDraw.
“My Idea for the
issue was to
The files were so large, and
the equipment so slow that
she would send the file to print
when she left the studio in the
evening and it would just be
finished when she returned
in the morning. One morning,
after she had arrived and was
assembling the tiled image,
it was clear that something
big was missing. For some
reason, her body had not
printed, though everything
else was there. While the
technical details of the
mystery of the missing body
remained unsolved, its later
reappearance on the pages
presented another problem —
Greiman didn’t like the way
her right breast looked. The
reproduction process had
flattened her and the light
was strange. So, in what
may well be the first MacDraw
breast replacement; she
cloned and flopped her left
breast and placed it on the
right side of her body.

do it as a 2’X6’
poster that folds
DESIGN QUARTERLY down to fit in a
sleeve the size of
MAGAZINE a regular copy of
DOES IT MAKE SENSE? the magazine.”

Photos:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The Fusion
of Technology and Graphic Design By April
Greiman.

Text:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The Fusion
of Technology and Graphic Design By April
Greiman.
4 5
 April Greiman’s innovative ideas and hybrid-

based approach have influenced and served

design and designers, clients and their projects

worldwide over the last twenty five years. Her

explorations of typography and color as objects

in time and space are grounded in her singular

fusion of technology and graphics.

“The expression of new tools, and the

expression of a personal agenda is
our reason for being.”–April Greiman
Text:
Adapted from Hybrid Imagery: The Fusion
of Technology and Graphic Design By April
Greiman.