After completing studies with Wolfgang Weingart at the Basel School of Design, Greiman moved first to New York and then to Los Angeles. It was in the context of Los Angeles culture, with its access to cutting-edge science and technology, that Greiman developed a new design approach. In the early 1980s, April became a pioneer of digital design with a series of then-radical experiments using Apples Macintosh to create a computerized blend of photography, airbrushing, and typesetting.
In 1985, Greiman produced her groundbreaking project for Design Quarterly #133 -- "Does it make sense?". The issue was the first of its kind to be composed and assembled as a single document on MacDraw. It was no conventional collage; many of the technological advances that followed in the graphic design community can be directly traced back to this daring issue. Before the appearance of “Does It Make Sense?” designers widely considered bit-mapped type and imagery not only unorthodox but unacceptable, straying too far from the clean, crisp precision of the Intermational Style. The computer itself was viewed as cold and unfriendly, wildly expensive, and a harbinger of the demise of fine design. After the publication of Design Quarterly #133, many designers felt compelled to reconsider the role of the computer in design practice.
Today, April Greiman brings a unique approach that blends technology and science with symbol and, myth, words and images with texture and space. Her singular expertise is focused on color-surfaces-materials consulting and trans-media identity and lifestyle-branding projects for such clients as AOL Time Warner, Sears Great Indoors, Amgen, Inc., and the new La Jolla Playhouse. Other clients include PacTel, Esprit, US West, the Walker Art Center, SCI-Arc, and the United States Postal Service, which commissioned her to design of a commemorative stamp for the 19th Amendment in 1995. A growing interest in the built environment has led to close collaborations with architecture firms such as Emilio Ambasz & Associates, Barton Meyers, Will Bruder Architects, Frank O. Gehry & Associates and RoTo Architects.
Her awards include the Hall Chair Fellowship, Hallmark Corporation (1989); local, state and national design awards, American Institute of Architects (1994-99); AIGA Fellowship (2003); Gold Medal, American Institute of Graphic Arts and Chrysler Award for Innovation, Chrysler Corporation (1998).
Greiman established her multi-disciplinary design practice in LA in 1976, currently called Made in Space.