Michael Patrick Cronan (1951-2013)
Photo by Ed Zak
Imaginative perception and innovation were the hallmarks of Michael Cronan's award-winning design career that spanned more than 40 years and was most closely associated with his native San Francisco Bay Area.
He passed away in 2013, after five years of living with cancer, leaving an awesome legacy of art and design work, family, and deep friendships.
Internationally known as one of “The Michaels”, his work is legendary.
Born in San Francisco, Cronan studied at the California College of the Arts (CCAC) and graduated with a degree in Fine Art from California State University, Sacramento. He taught at CCAC for twenty years, was a founding member and former president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), San Francisco chapter, served on the AIGA national board and presidential nomination committees, the advisory council of the International Design Conference at Aspen, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's (SFMOMA) Architecture and Design Accessions, and the National Endowment for the Arts ART WORKS. He co-founded the AIGA SFMOMA Design Lecture Series. He was an advisor, host, and long-time friend of the Creative Summit in San Marcos, Texas.
A partner in : : CRONAN : :, Michael created names, strategic brand identities and design for clients including Amazon Kindle, Apple, Estee Lauder Origins, Levi Strauss & Co., SFMOMA, TiVo, Williams-Sonoma, the United States Postal Service and the White House.
Michael was the creative director of Cronan Artefact, a product development, manufacturing and marketing company. The Walking Man line of apparel, designed by Cronan and company founder Karin Hibma, won International Design Magazine's 1992 Consumer Product Gold Award.
As consulting product development director of the SFMOMA MuseumStore from 1995-1997, Michael created the store identity, in-store displays and a series of product lines, including architectural reference products for the original Mario Botta-designed museum building. : : CRONAN : : returned to the project from 2002-2004 to update the overall store program, identity and brand strategy.
Awarded by leading national and international design organizations and publications, Michael's design work is in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute, the permanent Design Collection of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, London's Victoria & Albert Museum, and the American Graphic Design permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum. His work was featured in the Museo Fortuny (Venice, Italy) exhibition Pacific Wave, California Graphic Design and In the Public Eye, the first-ever graphic design exhibition at SFMOMA.