Lucille Tenazas

Lucille Tenazas (born December 17, 1953) is a graphic designer, educator, and the founder of Tenazas Design. Her work consists of layered imagery and typography, focusing on the importance of language. She was born in Manila, Philippines, yet has spent a large portion of her life practicing in the United States.

Her work includes projects for the Henry Art Gallery, Rizzoli International, San Francisco International Airport, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Symphony, the Stanford University Art Museum, and the University of California, Berkeley. and former Associate Dean in the School of Art, Media and Technology (AMT) at Parsons School of Design in New York.

In the mid-1970s, her aunt in Michigan offered to pay for postgraduate tuition in the United States. Unable to find a closer school to her aunt and misunderstanding the country's geography, she enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA), and moved to San Francisco in 1979. Upon graduation, she began working for the pharmaceutica companies Bristol-Myers and Smith Kline Corporation.

While visiting her aunt in Michigan in December 1979, she stopped by Cranbrook Academy of Art to show Katherine McCoy her portfolio. McCoy accepted Tenazas as a mid-year transfer student at Cranbrook, receiving an MFA in 2-D Design. She felt that the new graduate program ought to develop student's ideas through a process of self-discovery. This process of self-discovery is evident in the program's interdisciplinary focus which brings together theory and practice to develop the individual's personal voice in design.

Tenazas spent many years working with the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), starting as an event organizer for the San Francisco chapter, and then later becoming a member of the national board. She was the President of the (AIGA) from 1996 to 1998, becoming the first to be based outside of New York. This led to an expansion of various local chapters; there are now 73 chapters across the United States. In 2013, she was awarded the AIGA Medal. As a commemoration of Tenaza's achievements and contributions to the design world, the then mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, declared May 15, 1996 as Lucille Tenazas Day. This was ultimately initiated by the Filipino-American community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1996, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of her work.

Awards In 2002, Tenazas was awarded the National Design Award in Communications Design by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Tenazas was awarded the AIGA Medal in 2013 for "her prominent role in translating postmodern ideas into critical design practice; her exploration of the relationship between type, photography and language; and the development and leadership of highly-respected design education programs—always with exquisite execution."

Notable clientele

Espirit Chronicle Books Royal Viking Line Pacific Film Archive International Paper Center for the Arts Yerba Buena Gardens San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco Symphony San Francisco International Airport Rizzoli International Henry Art Gallery University of California, Berkeley Stanford University Art Museum