About Michael Patrick Cronan
Michael Patrick Cronan (June 9, 1951 – January 1, 2013) was an American graphic designer, brand strategist, adjunct professor, and fine art painter. He was one of the founders of the San Francisco Bay Area postmodern movement in graphic design, that later became known as the "Pacific Wave". He was a 2014 American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Medalist and received the AIGA lifetime achievement award in 2009. == Early life and education == Cronan was born in San Francisco, California on June 9, 1951 and grew up near Sacramento. As a teenager, he learned letterpress printing and had become an artist in a local print shop, creating posters. He studied fine art at California College of Arts and Crafts (now known as California College of the Arts) and later graduated from California State University, Sacramento (BA degree 1974). He met his future wife and business partner, Karin Hibma at California State University, Sacramento. Together they had two sons, sculptor and artist, Shawn HibmaCronan; and industrial designer, Nick Cronan. In 1971, he went abroad to study archeology, and work as an archaeological dig manager for Hebrew University in the Negev Desert and then at the Dead Sea. == Career == === Pacific Wave movement === In the early 1980s a few San Francisco–based designers were nicknamed “The Michaels” because they all had the same name (Cronan, alongside Mabry, Manwaring, Vanderbyl, Schwab), and later they were known as the "Pacific Wave" according to historian Steven Heller.
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