Chelsea Woo

Theo Dimson, a known graphic designer, was born in London, Ontario, on April 8th, 1930. Growing up with comic books and magazines, he became interested in design at an early age. With a scholarship, Dimson attended the Ontario College of Art and Design and graduated in 1950.

After Graduation, began a three-year apprenticeship with Art Associates Limited in Toronto. He freelanced for seven years before rejoining the firm in 1960 as vice-president of creative design. In 1960, Dimson became president and director of a new partnership Reeson Dimson & Smith Ltd. The company then later became Dimson & Smith & Smith Ltd. And maintained this name until Dimson created Theo Dimson Designs Inc. in 1985. He was the president creative director of this company.

He is the author of Great Canadian Posters and has been commissioned by Canada Post to create stamps. He has had solo shows in Toronto in 1978, and at the Royal Ontario Museum from 1992-to 94. Dimson is a me

mber of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, Associate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, and more.

Dimson was internationally recognized and received awards and accolades in books and magazines articles in countries around the world.

Sadly, Mr. Dimson passed away on 18 January 2012.

Some of His Works

Early Days

April Greiman is one of the leading women designers in the New Wave, post-modern style. In her early years, she grew up in New York City and attended the Kansas City Art Institution where she studied graphic design. Afterwards, during the early 70’s she enrolled at the Basel School of Design where she studied under the supervision of two well-known masters of this period, Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart. Here she also found her interest in the International Style, and her later ‘New Wave’ style.

Using New Tech

Greiman started experimenting with graphic design during the advancement of computer technology despite the hesitancy of many modernist and contemporary fellow designers. Her experimentation and curiosity in the digital aspects of design were liberating her from the traditional approaches. By incorporating advanced technology in her design process, her works soon became unique and had multidisciplinary aesthetics. This marked Greimen’s name among other leading voices of the New Wave style in this turning era of the American graphic design landscape.

How she uses digital media and her disciplinary approach to design

Greimans’ work explores the various styles of typography and ways to alter her two-dimensional canvas into three-dimensional space through the process of a kind of layering. This kind of process would have been extremely difficult to achieve with traditional tools.

Her Impact

Greiman was one of the leading voices to advocate for the importance of Macintosh in graphic design. She also demanded more recognition and influence from female designers. Greiman and other’s advocacies for female designers have continued to this day and contributed greatly to the current gender landscape of the graphic design world.

Works

Artist Robert Wesley Wilson, who is generally recognized as the father of the 1960s rock concert poster, was one of the best-known designers of psychedelic posters.

Wes Wilson was an American artist and one of the leading designers of this era. He is best known for designing posters for a person named Bill Graham of The Fillmore in San Francisco, he invented a style that is now synonymous with the peace movement the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. In particular, he was known for inventing and popularizing a “psychedelic” font around 1966 that made the letters look like they were moving or melting.

His style was heavily influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. Wilson was considered to be one of ”The Big Five” San Francisco poster artists, along with Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, and Stanley Mouse. Today his posters are converted among collectors, bringing hundreds or thousands of dollars. He experimented with fonts and colours to make it seems as though the letters were themselves moving.