Graphic design excellence: Emigre / Zuzana Licko’s Puzzler
Nostalgia can be distracting, particularly the “good old days” variety that makes one feel things used to be so much better. But when Emigre launches a redesign of its web site (the first in 9 years - yes, that’s 1997) it’s hard not to feel at least a pang. A lot of Generator.x readers probably know the Emigre story, but here’s a short history lesson for those who don’t.
Although it was always the Emigre fonts that paid the bills, it was Emigre Magazine that built the cult. Founded by Rudy VanderLans and first published in 1984, it finally closed with issue 69 in 2005. Always uncomprisingly dedicated to eclectic visions and new voices in graphic design, it concerned it self with a theoretical and subjective approach to design.
Emigre was declared public enemy #1 by much of the design establishment of the 80’s and 90’s. Its unpopularity had several causes. Emigre openly embraced computers as design tools and digital artifacts like pixels as new design elements in their own right. This put them in the midst of the “desktop publishing” controversy, which would eventually cause the obsolescence of professional typographers. More importantly, Emigre championed postmodernist and deconstructivist design experiments, and became a soapbox for new ideas coming out of schools like Cranbrook and Calarts.
Emigre’s willingness to showcase stylistic exercises that explored “form as function” rather than “form follows function” was an affront to Modernist schools of thought. But by the mid-90s Modernism was on the run, and the idea that a designer is merely a neutral translator of content was all but dead and buried. The Emigre revolution was soft, but irreversible. But nothing lasts forever.
With little to fight against, Emigre started losing steam towards the end of the 90’s. The internet took over as the most important influence on graphic design, and the excesses of postmodernism fell out of fashion. Emigre were among the first type foundries to have a web site and offer downloadable fonts, but it didn’t have such a good grasp on the new issues brought up by digital design. Some early computational experiments like the RandomFonts from Letterror, found space within the pages of Emigre Magazine. But web design as a field was largely passed by in silence.
The final issue (#69) features a collection of 69 stories by Rudy VanderLans, chronicling the trials and tribulations (but also successes) of Emigre Magazine. The font foundry remains one of the most important independent foundries out there, dedicated to solid typography with an eye for the curious and eclectic. Don’t miss out on Zuzana Licko’s fonts, including her lovely Puzzler pattern generator.
Related links
- Emigre essays, a collection of essays about Emigre.
- Collection of essays published in Emigre.
- The Cult of the Ugly.
- Wikipedia: Emigre magazine
This is so exciting for a typography geek --L.N.R.