Customer Reviews

Emigre: Graphic Design into the Digital Realm (Book)

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Somewhat of a biased reviewer, I recommend this book to any person that loves typography and wants to see the results of tremendous creative forces within the field. Or, if you have wanted to do something for a long time but didn't think you could do it ... also recommended for you.

Ever read that outsize magazine that always seems to have pages missing in your school library? Or maybe you have used one of the many typefaces from the Emigre stable...

This book is essetial reading for anyone with even a passing interest in design. The authors are designers (Vanderlans) and typographers (Zuzana Licko) of the highest order and seem to occupy an unusual middle ground somehwere between traditional print and digital multimedia. This book expounds their theories and shows why they should be regarded as highly by the public as they are by students and other designers.

Nowadays it's hard to remember that there was ever a time that Emigre was considered shockingly radical. With the massive surge of alternative type foundries and indie type designers, it's pretty hard to think of Emigre as "indie" any more. Not to mention the huge success of their typeface Mason--slapped over so many album covers and print ads in the last thirteen years that it's become a pest font damn near approaching that of Cooper Black or Hobo. But Emigre WAS radical, as this book reminds us. And they did more than just start a revolution in computer designed type. Their real value was to reintroduce a kind of type-centric design renaissance that hadn't really been seen since Jan Tschichold's "The New Typography".

Emigre made typographic design solutions exciting again. They also taught me a great lesson--type is something to think about and rant about--it's not just window dressing to go around the art. Who needs to design around a photograph when with the right font and some imagination you can ditch the photo altogether and have something considerably more challenging?

Anyway, if you can't tell, I think pretty highly of this book and agree that every designer should keep a copy around. More importantly, I think design students should look at it to get an idea of what IS possible with type--not just Emigre type, but with a true typographic approach to design, which I think the Emigre style embodies.

The book is several years old now and evidently out of print. Still it's worth the trouble to buy a used copy as they pop up from time to time.

The Emigre story traces the fascinating development of a magazine that introduced digital typography to the design world.

Rudy Vanderlans created Emigre in 1984, the year in which the the Macintosh computer changed graphic design and typography forever.

In its early years, the brilliant experimental type/design publication featured fonts designed Zuzana Licko, a pioneer in designing typefaces on the computer for the computer. Her early bitmap fonts, designed to be used on dot matrix printers, created an uproar in a design community that was already reeling from the drastic changes in typesetting and production methods. With the introduction of high res PostScript outline technology, Licko's designs became more sophisticated and designers began to appreciate the ability to design with typography in ways never thought possible.

This book traces the journey of digital type from shocking to mainstream and contains fascinating quotes from influential design professionals. Of special interest are many examples of the best work from the early Emigres, including all of the bold, memorable covers.

A must for every graphic design library.

The emigre magazine in one book, is cool, a impresive book, with a great size, like a big magazine shows the innovative design of the rudy vanderlas magazine trough the years, is a lovely book, buy it!

Hello!
I'm sorry but I don't speak English well.
I'm hurry.
So as fast as send this book to me, Please.
Thank you!