Emigre
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana LickoDeconstructivist typography, an idea more or
less inspired by linguistic theory, had a
complicated birth and many midwives.
During the 1970 s Basel designer Wolfgang
Weingart developed a system of typographic
reordering as an alternative to the dominant
Neue Grafikor international style. On the
surface his radical approach was chaotic,
yet underneath it was built on a structure
of hierarchical logic. Many of Weingart’s
exponents were schooled in academic
modernism and found that this new method
released them from old strictures. The
modern method was becoming unresponsive
as shifts in technology, economy, and politics
began to unhinge the canonical absolutes.
The spread of electronic media and
computer technology began to suggest, if not
define, new ways to present information.
With new interactive media, graphic design could no longer be one
dimensional. As traditional methods of designing books and magazines
were challenged, visionary American designers like April Greiman and Dan
Friedman found new ways of busting the grid. Harnessing the primitive
characteristics of electronic media and making strengths out of
technological weakness resulted in new methods that, over time, evolved
into a language. The use of multiple layers of discordant typefaces
integrated with imagery became, on the one hand, a commentary on the
information deluge, and, on the other, a signpost that underscored new
perceptual pathways. A similar discordant eruption in typography took
place in the late 1890 s, the Victorian era—the chaotic, nascent period of
commercial design when job printers purposely mixed different typefaces
together in the service of fashion and function.
In 1983 , a year before the introduction of the Macintosh
computer, Rudy VanderLans (b. 1955 ) and Zuzana Licko (b. 1961 ), the
former Dutch and the latter Czech, founded an alternative culture
magazine they called Emigre. What started as a cousin of the 1960 s134