The Role of Identity in Graphic Design:

An Examination of April Greiman’s Design Quarterly #133

Sherry Saunders

August 20, 2010

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Graphic design is a field that struggles with its own identity. A field born out of the need

to advertise products and events, it is often dictated by client needs and consumer demands. The

success of graphic design is linked with how well it communicates a message to the viewer.

Because the designer does not usually create the message, practitioners debate whether or not

personal expression belongs in graphic design. One philosophy argues graphic design is

supposed to be neutral with no opinion from the creator. Others feel they can create expressive

visuals and still have their message show through. Split between these two opposing ideologies,

Contemporary  American  graphic  designer April Greiman has established her own unique

visual identity in the field of design. This paper will explore the role of identity in graphic design

by using feminist critical theory and iconography. By examining her Design Quarterly # 133

(1986), it will also explain how April Greiman pushed the boundaries of graphic design by

creating an informative as well as self-expressive piece of graphic design.

Graphic design began as a result of the industrial revolution, and its origins are linked to

the Art Nouveau movement at the end of the 19th century. The industrial revolution brought a

multitude of new products to the market and thus created a need for advertising. Also, due to the

shift of people moving from rural farming communities to city centers, entertainment became a

large industry in need of promotion.

In this early period of graphic design, it was not uncommon to see artists cross over and

work as designers. One example of this is  early  20th  century  Austrian  artist Gustav Klimt.

Known for his gold leaf paintings such as The Kiss (fig. 1), Klimt was also a large influence on

graphic design in Vienna. He helped found the Vienna Secession, an artists group that reacted

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against the academy and wanted to promote newer styles of art.1 Klimt’s Secession poster (fig. 2)

has many stylistic qualities that can be seen in his paintings. In many ways, graphic design of the

early 20th century was an art form. It was using text and image in aesthetically  innovative ways

and was influenced by art movements and political climates:

Functional expression became an integral part of the self-expressive goals of art, and use was not viewed as the enemy of art. In particular, the Russian Constructivists retained their identities as artists even as they took on the role of public communicators for the Russian Revolution. In Germany, the Bauhaus unified art, craft, and design with a coherent philosophy and sense of identity.2

With the rise of corporate culture in the mid 20th century, a neutral trend in graphic design was

beginning to form. Often called the “Swiss” style or International Style, most people generally

refer to it today as Modernism. This is a movement with rigid standards that relies heavily on the

use of an organizational  grid. It systematically removes unnecessary details that might cloud the

original message. Modernism represents a large shift from the more expressive qualities found in

early graphic design: “Designers were trained in reducing the marginal from the essential,

distilling order out of disorder, formulating problems that already in their definition contained a

seed of the solution.”3 This concept began to legitimize graphic design:

The antithesis of the “big idea” approach, [the Swiss method] is based on an assumption of Modernist rational method, a codified approach that is not entirely dependent on the individualistic inspiration and talent of the designer. This had a profoundly professionalizing influence on American graphic design practice, further replacing the commercial artist’s servant image with that of a disciplined, educated professional.”4

                                                                                                               1 Stephen Eskilson, Graphic Design: A New History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 77. 2 Katherine McCoy, “The Evolution of American Typography,” Design Quarterly 148 (1990): 6, JSTOR (accessed 16 July 2010). 3 Paolo Polledri, “Pioneer of Aesthetic Passion,” Graphis 52 (1996): 40, Art Full Text, Wilson Web (accessed 24 July 2010). 4 McCoy, 11.

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The success of Modernist principles is evident by the way corporate identities have become so

recognizable. Corporations with clean, consistent logos and designs had an identity that

consumers could immediately recognize. No longer was the designer’s identity first on the

agenda; the corporation or client’s identity came first, and often the designer’s did not appear at

all. This left little room for self-expression furthering the disparity between graphic design and

art.

April Greiman began in the graphic design world while Modernism was still prevalent.

Born in 1948 in New York, she studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and majored in graphic

design. It was there that she learned the principles of Modernist graphic design. Her professors

studied at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland, and Greiman decided to get her graduate

degree from there as well.

Although trained in the modernist style, April Greiman eventually began to transition to

the “New Wave,” which is considered early Postmodernism.5 While at the Basel School of

Design, she studied under Wolfgang Weingart, one of the first designers to abandon the strict

aesthetic principles of the modernist style. He was largely informed by modernist principles, but

was open to using intuition and was less rigid in his application of the style:6

The irreverent Wolfgang Weingart rebelled against the minimalism of his predecessor, Emil Ruder, and in the late 1960s he initiated a body of work with his students that pushed early Modernism’s Constructivist experiments to their logical extremes. Enlarging on the earlier Swiss issues of structure and composition, he explored increasingly complex grids and typography in experimental compositions that became quite painterly.7

Greiman was inspired by the concepts that Weingart developed and began to experiment with

them in her own work. For instance, in his Schreibkunst poster, 1984 (fig. 3), Weingart’s design

                                                                                                               5 Eskilson, 352. 6 Ibid. 7 McCoy, 12-13.

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has a mix of the organized Modernist style as well as a free form collage aesthetic that is

reminiscent of Greiman’s work. Weingart was influenced by technology and used new devices

that could help create more variety in his work, and in this poster he used transparent films to

experiment with overlapping techniques.8 Although heavily influenced by the modern styles that

surrounded him, Weingart did not want to limit himself by traditional methods. Instead of strictly

adhering to the presubscribed rules of Modernist design Weinger used intuition, which he

preached to his students as an alternative design method. Her experiences working with Weingart

at Basel School of Design were the foundation for Greiman’s future development as a designer.

Similar to Weingart, new technology fueled Greiman’s experimentation with imagery.

From 1982-1984 Greiman worked as the chair of the art department as Cal Arts. She used their

state of the art video equipment and experimented with video imagery. Many people thought

Greiman’s new digital aesthetic and use of hybrid imagery represented an abandonment of

Modernist design principles. Greiman diverted from the objectivity and simplicity of Modernism

and felt the need to explore more subjective styles that did not focus on a grid, but instead

focused on her own intuition. Every artistic movement tends to be a reaction to what came before

it, and Greiman’s use of expression was her way to ignore the rules of modernism and make a

statement about the future of design. In the same way, Modernism was a reaction against what

came before it:

True, Helvetica and Univers typefaces of all sizes are omnipresent in the work of Swiss graphic designers of the 1960s, and contribute to the impression of design so tightly organized that it leaves no room for doubt. When restored to the climate of those years, however, we see that Swiss designers’ puritanical adherence to formal rules concealed a radical stance. They saw themselves as the last line of defense against mounting Kitsch.9

Modernism may seem cold and rigid, but “Their aesthetics of abstraction left ample room for

                                                                                                               8 Eskilson, 352. 9 Polledri, 45.

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personal expression. There was always an element that managed to escape from the rigid grid,

and this transgression highlighted the order of the composition.”10 Greiman was experimenting

within the conventions of her own time period and challenging the current design culture in the

same way the early modernists had done before her. Greiman was not condemning the Modernist

ideals; in fact, the two styles existed simultaneously and both are still valid methodologies that

are used and taught today. However, Greiman proved that personal expression could exist in

graphic design and client based work. She did not have to solicit work; clients sought out her

distinct aesthetic: “My early experimentation became something that could be fruitful because

these early industries have to communicate a new texture since they are a new texture.”11 In

1984, Greiman left her position at Cal Arts to pursue her own practice full time. That same year

she purchased her first Macintosh computer. This purchase would eventually lead to her most

revolutionary graphic design piece.

Design Quarterly was a publication published by the Walker Art Center and edited by

Mildred Friedman. It was highly circulated to the biggest names in the international design

community.12 When Greiman was asked to design issue #133 (fig. 4) in 1986, she knew the

Macintosh computer would be her medium for the project. Knowing that she was speaking to her

peers in the design community, Greiman took the opportunity to break all the rules and make a

visual statement. Normally the journal comes in a 32-page layout, but in this issue the reader

instead received a poster folded up to the same size of the magazine and was set in a pocket (fig.

5). The title read, “Does it make sense?” When folded out (fig.6), the poster is 2 feet by 6 feet,

                                                                                                               10 Ibid. 11 Strathmore Paper Company Interview “April Greiman,” Graphis 45 (1989): 16, Art Full Text, WilsonWeb (accessed 24 July 2010). 12 AIGA The Professional Association for Design, “April Greiman,” http://www.aiga.org (accessed 22 July 2010).

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“...similar in spirit to Andy Warhol’s experimental publications in the 60s which attempted to

expand or alter the communications characteristics of magazines.”13 Greiman did not include any

traditional articles in this work. The main content, on the back of the poster (fig. 7), explained

the difficulties that arose when working with this new medium, the computer. The second part of

the written content was text placed all over the front of the poster. There to be decoded by the

viewer, the text swirls around the images in various directions and sizes. There are philosophical

components juxtaposed against the scientific. The message is about the experience and impact of

the poster and the medium it used, and it is reminiscent of the time period it was created:

“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.”14 The viewers receiving this poster had to interpret it in their own way and try to

make sense of it all.

Formally, the first thing the viewer is confronted with is Greiman’s appearance on the

poster. Her nude body is at full scale and her eyes are closed. Opposite her sleeping self, at her

feet, her head floats with eyes open, and the text near it says “the spiritual double.” (Fig. 8)

Although one of the poster’s major themes is about scientific advancement, at first glance it does

not appear scientific at all, but rather feels emotive and expressive. As you look closer, though,

you can see that Greiman’s body is laid out in a scientific manner and scientific images surround

and overlap her. A few examples are a brain that floats off in the top left corner, a hand sticking

out from the top of Greiman’s head, and digitized images of the Lascaux cave paintings that are

overlaid on her body. As you look closer there is text strewn all over the poster in seemingly

                                                                                                               13 Chuck Byrne, “A Cold Eye: Miss April,” Print 41, (1987): 120. 14 AIGA The Professional Association for Design.

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random arrangements. For instance, mathematical equations for the speed of light and one light

year are written on the top of the poster. The words “live where you can” are written backwards

on her shin. It appears as thought some of it may be a joke to the artist as she plays with her

words making a list that starts with scientific units such as proton, neutron, electron, and moron.

A timeline lists major events in the world and in technology, i.e. the birth of the solar system, age

of the dinosaurs, Lascaux cave drawings, camera obscura, moveable type, Halley’s comet,

industrial revolution, electricity, etc. The timeline ends with Greiman’s own birthday. This

chaotic placement of type and imagery is subdued by Greiman’s use of a single tone of color. It

gives the composition a sense of harmony despite its disjointed subject matter. Appearing to be

the central theme of the poster, Greiman addresses the viewer initially with the question “Does it

make sense,” and she answers it with a quote, “ ‘if you give it a sense, it will make sense.’ – L.

Wittgenstein.” By including this, Greiman is challenging the viewer to make sense of her image,

and not giving them the chance to write it off as pure nonsense.

From a feminist perspective, Greiman’s poster has significant meaning. By placing

herself nude, Greiman is calling attention to herself as a female. The way she is laid out is very

scientific, calling more attention to her sex and not necessarily her femininity. She is establishing

herself as a woman in a field dominated by men. She is not addressing the viewer and is not

addressing the male gaze. By including her own birthday on the timeline, Greiman is making

claim to her spot in a history written by men. She is the only person to appear as an event; the

other events are mostly scientific and technological advancements. Greiman does not include the

names of any of the people that made these discoveries. Maybe she sees this as unimportant, but

more than that, she is choosing not to call attention to the fact that things like the telephone, light

bulb, automobile, and airplane were all discovered by men. These may have been important

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achievements for society, but by not calling attention to the individual, Greiman is giving more

emphasis to herself. Men may have made these discoveries, but it was within a system that did

not allow women the same freedom to choose a profession or gain a valuable education. Greiman

does not strictly focus on the patriarchal system of society, but instead shows with her own

birthday a shift in that system. Eventually, by the time she designed this poster in 1986, the entire

patriarchal system, propelled by the feminist movement, will have been turned upside down.

Greiman is showing her own place in this changing world as well as describing its larger place in

society.

It is interesting to note that Greiman altered part of her physical appearance in the poster:

“Greiman didn’t like the way her right breast looked. The reproduction process had flattened her

and the light was strange. So…she cloned and flopped her left breast and placed it on the right

side of her body.”15 As someone who presents herself as a strong woman establishing her place

in society, it’s difficult to understand why she would alter her own form. It could be that it did

not carry the same stigma that it does today with the prevalence of airbrushing in the magazine

industry. Without realizing it, she is foreshadowing the issue that will become a matter of much

debate. With the power of the computer, there is great power to design and manipulate. Early on,

Greiman found this out and, for better or worse, used it to create a more perfect physical self.

In order to understand the iconography in Greiman’s work, it is best to know first where

her inspiration comes from. After returning from graduate school, Greiman left New York to set

up a practice in California in the 1970s. At this time, California did not have a lot of art galleries

or even an artist community, but it was an untapped market that Greiman could capitalize on.16

Not sure where her inspiration would come from, Greiman was invited on a trip to the desert and

                                                                                                               15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.

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it changed her perspective on her life and her work: “While most processes occur at an invisible

level, the desert reveals its evolution in its very existence. I felt as if, for the first time, my eyes

were wide open to the process of evolution, to growth, to change.”17 This process of evolution is

evident in her work as a technical evolution. On her poster timeline, Greiman shows the

evolution of the world up to the Macintosh computer as a way to express the importance of this

new medium. In the early days of the personal computer, Greiman knew that great changes were

going to take place, and she was making a prediction of the changes in society by comparing the

computer to other major technological advancements that had an impact on society.

After her experience in the desert, Greiman adhered to the concept of order from chaos.

She felt that some things in nature that may appear chaotic actually when examined do have a

sense of order to them. Greiman used a weather chart in her poster as one way to represent this

concept. The weather may often appear chaotic, but as scientific developments have proved,

there is a systematic logic to weather patterns that make it possible to predict. Greiman used this

concept to connect man’s humanity and the natural world with scientific discovery. Greiman

appears to have positioned these concepts as two polarities in the human condition. This poster

depicts an attempt to be one with the earth and also to a need to control it. Greiman’s spiritual

double is a floating head that is awake and is juxtaposed against her sleeping body. This floating

head represents her digital self and symbolizes her disconnection from the more natural side of

her humanity. The fact that this more scientific aspect of her is awake and the natural is asleep

shows that she is undergoing a shift in her life. She has not abandoned nature; she is just

establishing a new side to herself and her work. The timeline is another symbolic object within

the poster. It does not show equal increments to represent the advancement of time; instead it

                                                                                                               17 Ibid.

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feels like the momentum is picking up as you get closer to the present. Greiman is making a

statement about how quickly technology is advancing in our culture and its speed is growing at

an exponential pace. There are several marks left blank that appear to leave room for the future.

A major theme in the poster is about the how the individual parts come together to make a

unified composition. In a lot of ways, the poster feels chaotic and overwhelming, but there is an

underlying structure that gives it a sense of balance.

Some criticized this piece to be self-indulgent and expressive at the sake of having no

real point: “Things seem to have been added to the visual field simply to fill up space rather than

add rich, informative layers of detail. Adding miscellaneous information merely for esthetic

reasons; both can be just as detrimental to effective communications.”18 The content of the

magazine only reflects Greiman’s process of design and her own personal philosophies. This

could be considered a self-centered approach, but in reality it shows how she took a chance to

use self-expression because in this situation there is no client dictating the message. In a typical

client/designer relationship, this type of expression would be frowned upon. Instead, Greiman is

working for a journal that is geared toward the design community. Design Quarterly should be

viewed as an artistic vehicle and partner rather than a client: “Opportunities for experimentation

followed by broad professional evaluation and dissemination of the results, good or bad, are

quickly disappearing.”19 Greiman began to experiment after the stagnation she experienced;

expressing her frustration and her own concern for the field of graphic design she states, “And I

really started to feel that many things I was seeing were all form and no content.”20 Although this

piece may seem to be about form, it also questions form by deconstructing it from its typical

                                                                                                               18 Chuck Byrne, 120. 19 Ibid. 20 Strathmore Paper Company Interview, 15.

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appearance. Greiman is not concerned with promoting herself at all. She really is trying to reach

out to her peers in the design community and wants to foster a collaborative environment: “I’d

like to see a ‘we’ focus instead of an ‘I’ focus…I’d like to see people sharing resources.”21

Greiman took a chance when she decided to express her own personal identity on a

poster. Not only did Greiman expose herself literally, but also she exposed new ideas that were

not readily accepted by all of her peers. The new aesthetic as well as her use of the computer

challenged the notions of traditional graphic design. Greiman showed that her personal identity

was viable in the design community and also in her expanding work. Her influence is invaluable

to the way graphic design is viewed today. April Greiman redefined the rules of graphic design

and gave the field a new sense of identity. One can see that Greiman is making a statement about

her world in 1986. She invited the viewer to consider if it made sense. Did she mean the design

of her poster, her use of the computer in graphic design, the nature of the world, the evolution of

technology, the fact that she is a woman addressing a primarily male audience? It is all of the

above.

                                                                                                               21 Ibid., 16.

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Bibliography

"April Greiman." AIGA | The Professional Association for Design. http://www.aiga.org/

(accessed July 22, 2010).

Bliss, Anna Campbell. “‘New Technologies of Art: Where Art and Science Meet’: Conference Report Leonardo.” 19, no. 4 (1986): 311-317. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1578377 (accessed 16 July 2010).

Byrne, Chuck. "A Cold Eye: Miss April." Print (New York, N.Y.) 41 (September/October 1987):

120. OmniFile Full Text Mega, WilsonWeb (accessed 24 July 2010). Carson, David, and Lewis Blackwell. David Carson: 2ndsight: Grafik Design After the End of

Print. New York, NY: Universe Pub., 1997. Celant, Germano, Mildred Constantine, and David Revere. McFadden. Design Vignelli. New

York: Rizzoli, 1990. Eskilson, Stephen. Graphic Design: A New History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Farrelly, Liz, and April Greiman. April Greiman: Floating Ideas into Time and Space. New

York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1998. Greiman, April, and Aris Janigian. Something from Nothing. Crans-Près-Céligny: RotoVision,

2001. Greiman, April. Hybrid Imagery: The Fusion of Technology and Graphic Design. New York:

Watson-Guptill, 1990. Heller, Steven. Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design. 2nd ed. New York City:

Allworth Press, 2004. McCoy, Katherine. “The Evolution of American Typography.” Design Quarterly, no. 148

(1990): 3-22. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091231 (accessed 16 July 2010). McQuiston, Liz. Women in Design: A Contemporary View. New York: Rizzoli, 1988. Polledri, Paolo. "Pioneer of Aesthetic Passion." Graphis 52 (November/December 1996): 38-45.

Art Full Text, WilsonWeb (accessed 24 July 2010). Reaves,  Wendy  Wick.  Ballyhoo!:  Posters  as  Portraiture.  [Washington,  D.C.]:  National  Portrait  

Gallery,  Smithsonian,  2008.  

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Rock, Michael. "The Designer as Author." Design Quarterly, Spring 1996. http://eye-magazine.co.uk/feature.php?id=30&fid=258 (accessed July 22, 2010).

Strathmore Paper Company Interview, “April Greiman.” Graphis 45 (November/December 1989): 14-16. Art Full Text, WilsonWeb (accessed 24 July 2010).

Vignelli, Massimo. Vignelli from a to Z. Mulgrave, Vic.: Images, 2007.

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Figures

Fig. 1 Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-1908, Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, Austria (Marilyn Stokstad, Art History, 1022)

Fig. 2 Gustav Klimt, Secession I Poster, 1898, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Stephen J. Eskilson, Graphic Design: A New History, 76)

Fig. 3 Wolfgang Weingart, Schreibkunst poster, 1984, Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich. Poster Collection (Stephen J. Eskilson, Graphic Design: A New History, 353)

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Fig. 4 April Greiman, Design Quarterly #133, 1986, (SCAD Special Collections, Savannah, GA)

Fig. 5 April Greiman, Design Quarterly #133, detail of pocket, 1986, (SCAD Special Collections, Savannah, GA)

Fig. 6

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April Greiman, Design Quarterly #133, detail of folds, 1986, (SCAD Special Collections, Savannah, GA)

Fig. 7 April Greiman, Design Quarterly #133, back of poster, 1986, (SCAD Special Collections, Savannah, GA)

Fig. 8 April Greiman, Design Quarterly #133, detail of right side of poster, 1986, (SCAD Special Collections, Savannah, GA)