April Greiman was a designer in New York City in the mid-1970s when she decided to leave the comfort of a design community deeply entrenched in European tradition for an uncertain future on the opposite coast. Seeking a new spirit, she moved to Los Angeles and entered a culture that, for better or for worse, had a limited aesthetic of its own at that time. Museums and galleries were few and it was impossible to get a decent cup of coffee. But the lack of an established design practice created a unique opportunity to explore new paradigms in communications design. Soon after she settled in Los Angeles, a friend offered to take her to the desert. “Death Valley?” she said. “Sounds pretty bleak.” He dragged her along anyway, and within hours she found herself seduced by the landscape. “The desert is its own educational vehicle,” she says. “While most processes occur at an invisible or microscopic level, the desert reveals its evolution in its very existence. I felt as if, for the first time, my eyes were wide open to the process of evolution, to growth, to change."