Michael Patrick Cronan
Encyclopedia
American Institute of Graphic Arts
AIGA is an American professional organization for design. Organized in 1914, AIGA currently has more than 22,000 members throughout 66 chapters and more than 200 student groups nationwide...
Fellow based in Berkeley California. One of the founders of the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
postmodern movement in graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
that became known as the "Pacific Wave", and a recognized corporate identity designer, acknowledged for the naming and the identities of TiVo
TiVo
TiVo is a digital video recorder developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList"...
, Verio
Verio
Verio is a global web hosting provider headquartered in the United States. Incorporated in 1996 in Denver, Colorado, it is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications, who acquired the company in 2000...
, the Indigo, Onyx and Crimson computer lines for Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
(SGI) and naming Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
.
Early life and education
Michael Cronan was born in San Francisco in 1951 and grew up in the suburbs of SacramentoSacramento
Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...
along the Sacramento and American rivers. As a teenager he learned letterpress printing
Letterpress printing
Letterpress printing is relief printing of text and image using a press with a "type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image...
and became an artist in a local print shop where he created posters. He studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) (now California College of the Arts), where he later served as adjunct professor of graphic design from 1981 to 2001. In 1971 Cronan went abroad to study archeology and work as an archeological dig manager for Hebrew University in the Negev Desert and the at Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
. In 1974 he received a Bachelor Degree in Fine Art from California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento, popularly known as Sacramento State, is a public university located in the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the California State University system...
.
Early career
Cronan and partner Karin Hibma established the design firm Michael Patrick Cronan Design dba ::CRONAN:: in 1980 with clients including Levi Strauss & Company, Apple ComputerApple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, Estée Lauder Origins
Origins (cosmetics)
Origins is a cosmetics brand from USA, founded in 1990 by Leonard Lauder, son of Estee Lauder. It is one of the original brands of The Estee Lauder Companies, meaning that it was created by the Lauder family, not obtained through an acquisition or buy-out.The company is known for their natural...
and Williams-Sonoma
Williams-Sonoma
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is a high-end American consumer retail company that sells kitchenwares, furniture and linens, as well as other housewares and home furnishings, along with a variety of specialty foods, soaps and lotions...
as well as the San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...
, the Oakland Museum, The Pickle Family Circus
Pickle Family Circus
The Pickle Family Circus was a small circus founded in 1974 in San Francisco, California, USA. The circus formed an important part of the renewal of the American circus. They also influenced the creation of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal...
, and SFMOMA. He was a founding member of the American Institute of Graphic Art (AIGA)
Aiga
‘Aiga is a word in the Samoan language which means 'family.' The aiga is the family unit of Samoan society and differs from the Western sense in that it consists more than just a mother, father and children. The Samoan family, also referred to as an 'extended family' is based on the culture's...
chapter in San Francisco and the AIGASF chapter president after serving on the AIGA national board for three years.
Recognition for innovation in graphic design
In 1981 Cronan designed SUSHI, a book that launched a new form of food book.In 1985 Cronan was included with thirty-five American Designers in "Pacific Wave" an exhibition of graphic design curated by Giorgio Camuffo at Museo Fortuny, Venice, Italy.
In 1989 Cronan and Hibma expanded their design palette to include clothing with the creation of the Walking Man, a line of apparel which became the focus of a number of articles and books about designers creating their own products as well as attracting a loyal customer following. In 1992 and 1993 Walking Man clothing won the I.D. Magazine
I.D. (magazine)
I.D. was a magazine covering the art, business and culture of design. It was published eight times a year by F+W Media....
Consumer Product of the Year / Gold Award presented at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum, a subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution, is the United States' national museum of design history and contemporary design and the only museum in the U.S. whose collection is solely focused on contemporary and historic design...
, New York.
Also in 1993 Cronan was featured in "In the Public Eye - the work of Four Graphic Designers" including Michael Manwaring, Gerald Reis and Michael Vanderbyl
Michael Vanderbyl
Michael Vanderbyl is a multidisciplinary designer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the principal of Vanderbyl Design....
. It was the first graphic design exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, and its popularity ushered in an expanded presence of graphics in the museum's floor space and permanent collection. In the commentary for the exhibition New York designer Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut is a graphic designer, design critic and educator.Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning....
described Cronan's logos as, "the effortless transmutation of dumb drawings into potent icons." SFMOMA's Curator of Architecture and Design, Paolo Polledri wrote, "For Cronan, design is an experience the designer shares with an audience. The designer investigates and clarifies needs expressed by others. This process requires a high degree of empathy, since the designer must sense the dreams, memories, and expectations of others and translate them into images that can be commonly understood. As a result, the audience gains something from the process. For Cronan, design is more than art, it is a service," and "Humor performs an important function in Cronan's polymorphic designs. Never completely absent, it is never abrasive. It adds a human touch, rather than subtracting from the seriousness of the subject."
In 1998 SFMOMA commissioned Cronan to create the SFMOMA symbol which graphically captures the distinctive oculus at the center of the museum building designed by Mario Botta
Mario Botta
Mario Botta is a Swiss architect. He studied at the Liceo Artistico in Milan and the IUAV in Venice. His ideas were influenced by Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, Louis Kahn. He opened his own practice in 1970 in Lugano.-Career:...
.
Later that year Cronan created the stamp commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of NATO for the United States Postal Service and later the Prostate Awareness stamp.
In 2002 Cronan's work was included US Design: 1975-2000 a survey of 250 objects and images first shown at the Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
, organized by the Museum's curator R. Craig Miller. ArchNews described the exhibition as "some of the most exciting work produced by American-based designers during the past 25 years."
His graphic design work is currently in the permanent collections of SFMOMA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, the Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
, the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in Washington, DC, The Smithsonian National Postal Museum
National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum, located opposite Union Station in Washington, D.C., USA, was established through joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution and opened in 1993. The museum is located across the street from Union Station, in the building that...
, and London's Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
.
Cronan was Chairman of the Board of the Pickle Family Circus
Pickle Family Circus
The Pickle Family Circus was a small circus founded in 1974 in San Francisco, California, USA. The circus formed an important part of the renewal of the American circus. They also influenced the creation of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal...
, attended the Aspen Leadership Summit in 2005 and served on the Board of the Aspen Design Summit 2005-2006. He has created identities for and served on the advisory boards of non-profits such as the Family Violence Prevention Fund - Founding Fathers
Family Violence Prevention Fund
Futures Without Violence is a US-based 501 nonprofit focused on ending domestic and sexual violence...
, among others.
Cronan has been subject of profile articles in Communication Arts Magazine, I.D. Magazine, Linea Graphica (Italy), Graphis Inc., HOW, among many others and books including Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands, A History of Graphic Design, Meggs, Making Graphic Design History and The Design Entrepreneur, Graphis Brand. His award-winning work has been published extensively in graphic design annuals and other publications. He has spoken to design communities and judged design competitions throughout the United States and internationally.
Cronan is an accomplished artist and regularly exhibits his artwork as well as takes private commissions. His artwork is available online.
Since 2005 Cronan has focused on creating names, visual identities and brand strategies for new products, companies and emerging technologies. In June 2009, he and Karin Hibma were named two of Fast Company's
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
list of 100 Most Creative People in Business.