For example, working on my Bodoni revival, Filosofia, allowed me to better understand this long-time classic. This kind of scrutiny, in turn, has given me ideas for faces that are not strict revivals, such as Tarzana and Solex. ZL: It depends on the intended usage, and what criteria you define as being important: longevity of usage, intensity of usage, influence on other designers, etc.
It takes the perspective of time to determine which typefaces remain classics, which become icons, and which fade away. Moreover, these perceptions also change, and it is the constant changing of these perceptions that drives our desire for new typeface solutions. In addition, new technologies and environments present new problems for the designer to address.
The most successful experimental typeface designs are often those that address the possibilities or limitations of a yet uncharted technology. RR: But we live and make decisions in the moment without the benefit of a time-lapse perspective. You must have opinions on typeface designs, and criteria for determining whether you want to pursue a particular design. RR: Your father, a biomathematician who enabled your early computer access, was your first client, with the commission of a Greek alphabet for his personal use.
The Macintosh was unveiled at the time I graduated. It was a relatively crude tool back then, so established designers looked upon it as a cute novelty. But to me it seemed as wondrously uncharted as my fledgling design career.
When I started building Macintosh bitmap fonts in , it was a purely experimental endeavour. It was Emigre magazine that opened up these options. Issue 3 was the turning point for my typeface experiments and for the magazine, as it was typeset entirely using my first low-res fonts. We had a lot of inquiries about the availability of these typefaces that no one had seen before.
It was the start of Emigre Fonts. For a while this turned me into a typesetter. Many of the designers who wanted to use my typefaces did not have a Macintosh, so I was selling typesetting with my fonts.
As it turned out, the magazine provided me with a reason to continue developing these fonts, as well as a means to promote them. Using the Macintosh not only cut costs but added a level of design control that otherwise would have been mediated through an outside typesetting service.
ZL: While I work primarily on screen, sometimes I begin with rough thumbnail sketches, to give me an idea of the proportions or a detail of a character. Then I try out shapes and serif details directly in the Fontographer drawing window.
The only hand drawing I do is on laser printouts, to mark areas that need adjustment, or to sketch alternate forms. Then I eyeball the corrections on screen. At any given time, I have several designs sitting on the back burner. Sometimes I put a design away when I hit a stumbling block, and it may take months or even years to resolve some of these design problems.
RR: In the s your typefaces were criticised as being either ugly or hard to read. How do you look back on those reactions? This is particularly problematic with typefaces such as Base 9 and Citizen that need more breathing space than narrower ones.
It makes me wonder how such billboard designs come about. This sometimes happens in books where the typography and the typeface are so well blended in a traditional sense that the idiosyncrasies which my typefaces tend to have are downplayed. What was it like revisiting these typefaces fifteen years later? ZL: It was interesting to see how much font and page-layout technologies have changed, and how font-making software has improved. The reasons for the re-release were mostly technical, to accommodate new possibilities or new restrictions.
For example, when I originally released these fonts, the use of point sizes was limited to a basic set, usually 9, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24 point. Once the point size restriction was lifted, I was able to fine-tune the grid resolutions so that the capitals are in alignment when the resolutions are scaled to the same size. At the same time, I added the euro symbol, and made the font outlines compatible with recent technologies such as Flash.
We also renamed the fonts under one family name, which made more sense within the context of our font library. This format developed by Adobe and Microsoft makes it possible to incorporate advanced typographic features into PostScript and TrueType fonts.
I see it everywhere: magazines, book covers, even the junk mail with my electric bill! ZL: I think Mrs Eaves was a mix of just enough tradition with an updated twist. It makes the reader slow down a bit and contemplate the message. This was in After college we both did all sorts of design-related odd jobs.
Licko and VanderLans became early adopters to the new technology and they used the computer to experiment and created some of the very first typeface designs and digital page layouts, causing great consternation within the realm of graphic design.
Eventually, exposure of the typefaces in Emigre magazine resulted in demand for the fonts, which led to the creation of the Emigre Type foundry. This growing library of digital typefaces, both experimental and traditional, is currently the principle activity and mainstay of Emigre. This growing library of digital typefaces, both experimental and traditional, is currently the principle activity and mainstay of Emigre.
As a team, Emigre has been honored with numerous awards including the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, and the Charles Nypels Award for excellence in the field of typography. Licko is the recipient of an honorary Ph. Emigre, Inc. Founded in , coinciding with the birth of the Macintosh computer, the Emigre team, consisting of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, with the addition of Tim Starback in , were among the early adaptors to the new technology.
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