Emigre

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Emigre Inc. is an American graphic design company and one of the first independent font and software publishers ( foundry ).

The company was founded in Berkeley , California in 1984 by designers and typographers Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko . The company name (company) arose from the English-French term émigré for emigrant , as both company founders originally come from Europe (VanderLans from the Netherlands , Licko from the former Czechoslovakia ).

The approach for the business idea was to serve the young, rapidly growing desktop publishing market with the introduction of the Apple Macintosh with innovative, experimental WYSIWYG screen and PostScript fonts, an attractive design and the associated software. It was no coincidence that the company was founded in 1984 with the introduction of the Macintosh. Licko and VanderLans inspired by techno-culture and underground , sat with her radical writings deliberately turning away from traditional standard fonts of the traditional type foundries such as ITC , Monotype and Linotype and searched for alternatives to the then relatively expensive fonts of emerging software company Adobe , which Licko previously had worked.

Typographer Zuzana Licko was largely responsible for the fonts, contributing both the creative potential and being responsible for rendering the fonts on the computer. VanderLans, on the other hand, took on the task of the publisher and primarily took care of the distribution of the in-house magazine Emigre Magazine , which was both a forum for innovative designs and designers, as well as a practical application example and catalog for Licko's fonts. The art print booklet became next to the magazine Raygun of American designer David Carson soon open secret in California's design scene and found quickly on the European market response.

meaning

The company has published numerous popular typefaces in the 25 years of its existence, such as E.g. the typefaces Triplex (Licko), Matrix (Licko), Lunatix (Licko) or with Filosophia (Licko) or Vendetta ( John Downer ) postmodern reminiscences of classic bastard and serif typefaces, which have now become design classics themselves . With the increasingly inflationary spread of so-called “ shareware ” or “ freeware fonts ”, which was accompanied by a softening of the licenses by Apple and Adobe, which are market leaders in the graphic sector , the initial boom in independent design companies also subsided. Due to the epigonism on the graphic market, the charismatic-progressive " underdog nimbus" of Emigre, David Carson or Neville Brody's Research Studios in London a . v. a. After twenty years of publication, Emigre Magazine was discontinued with issue 69 in 2005. "Emigre Inc." continues to operate as an independent design company and operates the mailing of font software and various design items. In terms of style, Emigre is usually characterized by a significant, colorful, floral and experimental graphic design using only in-house fonts.

aftermath

The Emigre Magazine as an example, innovative graphic designs of the 20th century in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York received, as well as in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Design Museum in London and the Denver Art Museum .

Fonts (selection)

  • Lo-Res, 1985/2001 (Licko)
  • Modula, 1985 (Licko)
  • Citizen, 1986 (Licko)
  • Matrix, 1986-1992 (Licko)
  • Lunatix, 1988 (Licko)
  • Oblong, 1988/1989 (VanderLans, Licko)
  • Senator, 1988/1989 (Licko)
  • Variex, 1988 (VanderLans, Licko)
  • Elektrix, 1989 (Licko)
  • Triplex, 1989 (Licko)
  • Tall Pack, 1990 (Licko)
  • Totally Gothic, 1990 (Licko)
  • Matrix Script, 1992 (Licko)
  • Base, 1995 (Licko)
  • Filosofia, 1996 (Licko)
  • Mrs Eaves, 1996 (Licko)
  • Mrs Eaves Just Ligatures, 1996 (Licko)
  • Base Monospace, 1997 (Licko)
  • Tarzana, 1998 (Licko)
  • Cholla, 1999 (Sibylle Hagmann)
  • Vendetta, 1999 (John Downer)
  • Dalliance, 2000 ( Frank Heine )
  • Solex, 2000 (Licko)
  • Priori, 2003 (Jonathan Barnbrook)
  • Vista, 2004 ( Xavier Dupré )
  • Puzzler, 2005 (Licko)

literature

  • Rudi VanderLans, Zuzana Licko, and Mary E. Grant: Emigre - Graphic Design Into the Digital Realm , John Wiley & Sons Inc (1993); ISBN 978-0471285472 (English)
  • Thi Truong, Mai-Linh; Siebert, Jürgen; Spiekermann, Erik: FontBook - Digital Typeface Compendium , FSI FontShop International: 2006, ISBN 978-3930023042

See also

Web links