"Recognize the opportunity!"
Zuzana Licko was born in 1961, the year known as the “upside-down” year (according to MAD Magazine), in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. At the age of seven, she moved to the United Sates with her family. According to an article in Eye magazine, by Rhonda Rubenstein, “Licko (pronounced Litchko) emigrated to the US with her family as a schoolgirl.” Her father, a bio-mathematician, provided her great insight and access to computers. He proposed an opportunity, as her first client, for her to design and develop her first typeface for his personal use. His guidelines fell under those of Greek alphabet. After shadowing her father’s career path and playing around with typography, she decided to attend The University of California at Berkeley in 1981. As an undergraduate, she initially wanted to study architecture and took classes in photography and computer programming. But after related back to her interest in the computer designs, she then changed her major to visual studies and undertook a graphic communications degree.
One struggle she discovered throughout her college years was the hardships with being left-handed. She hated her calligraphy class because they forced her to write with her right hand. ((Personally, I don’t blame her. Already the classes are tedious and demanding. Just imagine having to do all the work with your subordinate hand)). Though this posed a huge battle, along with the precieved male-dominate profession, she concurred it with steadfast determination and graduated with her degree. It was said that she, “…bypassed traditional training”.
While at school she met a young man named Rudy VanderLans, a Dutch type and graphic designer who studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Hague and then moved to California to study photography: a very influential icon in her life. “After college, we both did all sorts of design-related odd jobs. There was no direction. Then, in 1984 the Macintosh was introduced, we bought one, and everything started to fall into place. We both, each in our own way, really enjoyed this machine. It forced us to question everything we had learnt about design. We both enjoyed that process of exploration, of how far you could push the limits. Rudy is more intuitive; I’m more methodical. Yin and yang. It seemed to click, and still does,” Licko explains.
Like she stated, in 1984 the first Macintosh was introduced and they sensed an automatic desire and attraction to have it. This was a large milestone later was admitted to one of the most influential events in her life. “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. It was a fortunate coincidence; I'm sure that being free of preconceived notions regarding typeface design helped me in exploring this new medium to the fullest.”
Licko and VanderLans founded a Émigré Design team in 1984. Evolving from this design team was the Émigré journal, which displayed Licko’s digital typeface designs. As the journal was originally intended to be a cultural showcase of artists, photographers, poets and architects, it turned into something more. It cultivated into a “magazine that ignores boundaries”.
(Click here to see Émigré covers!)
The first issue, put together in 1984 in Sacramento, California, was constructed by an elaboration between Licko, VanderLans and two other Dutch immigrants. At this time there was lack of budget for typesetting, so the text was mostly typewriter type and filtered by a photocopier. After the edition, Licko became more and more familiar with her Macintosh and started creating different fonts for the magazine. “Licko eagerly latched onto the technology and immediately began to explore the new visual language”. Unlike prior creations where typographic forms influenced by calligraphy and dot matrix printers were used, Licko took advantage of her public domain software.
Her first creations, Emperor, Oakland, and Émigré (how fitting) were presented in Issue two of the magazine. This conjured up a large viewer interest, so Licko began inserting ads for the fonts into her magazine (first seen in Issue 3). The ads were a hit! In 1985, Licko and VanderLans launched Émigré, a design market and type foundry, so that young designers could market their own typefaces. This foundry was known as a “mom-and-pop, electronic-cottage industry.” Licko says, “Typefaces are designed by people who rely on sales in order to continue investing in the development of new designs. We try to bring this message across in a variety of ways.” ((Thus showing her innate ability to relay her messages and reveal an insight that I have yet to establish as a young designer.)) Their new type foundry now governed the magazine.
The development of Émigré, the typeface foundry, evinced the evolution of digital technology while still evaluating legibility and layout. Her highly structured typefaces worked correspondingly with VanderLans coherent compositions. Rubenstein states, “The "Émigré aesthetic" lay at the heart of a once-controversial battle on the American design scene, pitting them against Modernists such as Massimo Vignelli, who referred to the new typography as "garbage." You could say Licko and Émigré, the foundry, had moved beyond the alternative pop cultural status in the 1980’s and produced some of the most innovative typefaces that were showcased in their magazine throughout the years. An essay, produced by Licko and VanderLans in Issue 11 in 1989, evaluates the couples heightened excitement for design. It reads, “This is perhaps the most exciting of times for designers. Digital technology is a great big unknown, and after all, a mystery is the most stimulating force in unleashing the imagination.”
In the mid 1990’s, Licko worked to revive two significant fonts. She worked with Baskerville and Bodoni (along with many others discussed further in the essay) to create Mrs. Eaves and Filosofia. She used personal interpretation and influence of their historical value to create ligatures. ((Ligatures occur when two or more letters are joined. They usually replace succeeding characters sharing common components.))
The basis of Licko’s success was driven by her tenacious desire to utilize production of technology in creation. She wrote many essays in her magazines about an assortment of topics in relation to design. In Issue 32 in 1994, she investigates the comparison between science and design and posed the question, “Does a typographic phenomenon exist if no one recognizes it?" She then explains how an existence is just waiting to be rediscovered and if the appropriate actions are taken, they will be brought back to life. Licko gives an example of her theory, “consider the 26 letters in our alphabet and how they are combined to form words. There is a finite number of combinations, or words, if we limit ourselves to words of a certain length; say, five letters. Then, for the ease of pronunciation, let's omit all words that contain a string of three or more consecutive consonants. Even with these restraints to give some "meaning" within our understanding of words, there will be many words that will have no meaning to us. Does this mean that these are not words? Does a sequence of letters not form a word when we do not recognize its meaning?” ((VERY INTERESTING!))
A website was created for Émigré in 1995 and the latest on Licko is she is still developing more classical fonts. A very intriguing quote from Zuzana herself: “Nothing is permanent, yet there is much value in the reincarnation of classics.” Her drive to reevaluate is very inspiring. The magazine and foundry are still going strong. The couple has published many articles as well as a book in 1993, Great Design in the Digital Realm. An excerpt from their books reads, “Over the past ten years, the work of Émigré has constantly changed as a direct result of the rapid development of the Macintosh computer. By presenting Émigré’s work and ideas chronologically in this book, the authors show how the revolutionary technological changes that have taken place have affect the creation of all kinds of graphic design.” Their book evaluates their success with the magazine, yet so little designers have read it.
As more innovations to the magazine are created, (involvement of music-oriented incarnations) the thrill and excitement Zuzana Licko portrays is still implicit. “Licko's creation of some of the first desktop digital typefaces and VanderLans’ Mac-based experimentation with new ways to present text and images have influenced the ongoing transformation of graphic designers from their traditional, Gutenberg roots to an unknown, digitized future.” She stands as a true mover in the revolution of typeface design.
Her fonts were revivals of the classics. She states,“The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read; their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read.” Her first fonts, Emperor, Oakland and Emigre, were revisited because "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." (More in the interview below!) Her two primary innovations were Mrs. Eaves and Filisophia! Mrs. Eaves, a revival of Baskerville, is her most popular font named after a forgotten woman in typographic history! She claims, " I see it everywhere: magazines, book covers, even the junk mail with my electric bill!" Mrs. Eaves has near vertical stress, has a heavier stroke weight similar characteristics to Baskerville. "the lowercase g with its open lower counter and swashlike ear. Both the roman and italic uppercase Q have a flowing swashlike tail. The uppercase Chas serifs at top and bottom; there is no serif at the apex of the central junction in uppercase W; and the uppercase G has a sharp spur suggesting a vestigial serif." The typeface family includes roman, italic, petite capitals, small capitals, bold, and roman and italic ligatures.
"I think Mrs Eaves was a mix of just enough tradition with an updated twist. It’s familiar enough to be friendly, yet different enough to be interesting. Due to its relatively wide proportions, as compared with the original Baskerville, it’s useful for giving presence to small amounts of text such as poetry, or for elegant headlines and for use in print ads. It makes the reader slow down a bit and contemplate the message." -Zuzanna Licko
Mrs. Eaves
Filosofia on the other hand was a revival of the Bodoni font. It was designed for text applications. It is rugged with reduced contrast, yet delicate.
"Filosofia is my interpretation of a Bodoni. It shows my personal preference for a geometric Bodoni, while incorporating such features as the slightly bulging round serif endings which often appeared in printed samples of Bodoni's work and reflect Bodoni's origins in letterpress technology."
Filosofia
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-Licko
1988 invented "BR31"monogram Variex by Vanderlan & Licko. ((Used on Baskin Robbins Logo))
During Zuzana Licko's life, the technology changed a great amount. This affected many designers in keeping up with the newest and latest innovations. Due to the recent time frame, I can personally say the graphic communications business has flourished a great amount. From the rein of President Clinton to the historical monument of our first African American president, Licko stuck true to herself. This meant a lot to me. She is a very driven woman, who utilizes her resources to the max. I don't feel as though the time frame she was, minus the evolving technology, curved her mindset. She used everything to the greatest potential and her confidence glows.
Sources:
http://www.identifont.com/show?1I2
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Zuzana-Licko
"A Typographic Workbook: A Primer to History, Techniques and Artistry" (By Kate Clair 2005 Danvers, MA
"Émigré: Graphic Design in the Digital Realm" (By: Rudy and Zuzanna 1993, Bryon Press Visual Publications: published by John Wiley & Sons Co.)
"Discovery by Design" & "Ambition/Fear" (essay from Issue 32 in 1994) By Licko
http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=1&id=16
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