Detailed Biography

Lucille Tenazas is principal of Tenazas Design, a communication graphics and design firm based in San Francisco. Her work is widely regarded for its unique approach to graphic design which is considered rigorous, thoughtful and provocative. Her design reflect an interest in the complexity of language and the overlapping relationship of meaning, form, and content. By merging the poetic and the pragmatic, Tenazas achieves a fluid and flexible approach to design, one that is human as well as critical. Educated in Manila, the Philippines, Lucille studied at the CCAC and received her MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Lucille lectures extensively, both here and abroad, chiefly to discuss her work in the context of personal philosophies and to explore the juncture of design and culture.

Lucille is widely respected in the design as well as the art and architecture fields. In 1995, she was honored as one of the I.D. Forty, I.D. magazine's third annual selection of 40 of America's leading design innovators. She was the national president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1996-98, representing the first presidential appointment made outside of New York in the organization's  80-year history. A retrospective of her work was exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1996.

In 1998, she became a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale, (AGI), joining a select few designers invited to represent the United States. Tenazas Design is the recipient of numerous communications design awards and work coming out of the studio has been exhibited in museums including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Most recently, Lucille was the recipient of the National Design Award in the Communications Design category sponsored by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for 2002.