Emigre

The brainchild of Dutch typographer Rudy Vanderlans and his wife Zuzana Licko who set up the collective in the early 80’s with the focus of presenting young and up coming designers who weren’t getting the recognition that they deserved.

The pair throughout the years have studied at various schools and under various high profile designer throughout their careers such as Wim Crouwel, and have designed many exciting and unusual typefaces as well as presentable and usable everyday font’s such as Mr and Mrs Eaves a family of San serif and serif typefaces to a large collection of picture fonts such as Blockhead and Big Cheese.

However they are best known for the magazine Émigré which ran for twenty years over a bi-quarterly (sometimes) format. The magazine showcased younger artists as well as including essays from high profile designers such as Rick Poyner, although it was the layout of the magazine which brought in the readers.
It followed a very grunge like feel lot’s of what appears like montage which is also repeated throughout the layout of the text, which at the time was very unusual and completely different to everything else available in the same category. The fact that the publication was more experimental than other also meant it could take risks and this would be shown through Vanderlans choice in some unusual subjects of the 69 issues of the magazine. Maybe this reflects why some issues of the magazine were some times easier to find in a record store than on the shelves at a newsagents.
Over the years the magazine changed format several times each time the design being used to promote the magazine to a different audience, offering for certain issues a smaller pocket sized book which was easier for reading on the move. It was these changes and through the growth of the magazine that it got it’s name as a serious piece which covered everything under the title of graphic design.