Rudy VanderLans (born 1955,
Voorburg
Voorburg is a town and former municipality in the west part of the province of South Holland, Netherlands. Together with Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it makes up the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. It has a population of about 39,000 people ...
) is a Dutch graphic designer, photographer, and the co-founder of
Emigre Fonts with his wife
Zuzana Licko
Zuzana Licko (born Zuzana Ličko, 1961) is a Slovak-born American type designer and visual artist known for co-founding Emigre Fonts, a digital type foundry in Berkeley, CA. She has designed and produced numerous digital typefaces including the ...
. Emigre Fonts is an independent type foundry in
Berkeley, CA
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryv ...
. He was also the art director and editor of
Emigre magazine
''Emigre'' () was a (mostly) quarterly magazine published from 1984 until 2005 in Berkeley, California, dedicated to visual communication, graphic design, typography, and design criticism. Produced by Rudy VanderLans (editor and art director) and ...
, the legendary journal devoted to visual communications from 1984 to 2005. Since arriving in California in 1981, he has been photographing his adoptive Golden State as an ongoing side project. He has authored a total of 11 photo books on the topic, and staged two solo exhibits at
Gallery 16
Gallery 16 is a contemporary art gallery located in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. It is owned by the San Francisco-based painter Griff Williams, and opened in 1993. Artists who have exhibited there include Graham Gillmore, Tuck ...
in San Francisco.
Education and graphic design
VanderLans studied graphic design at the
Royal Academy of Art
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
in
the Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
(KABK) and graduated in 1979. He worked as an apprentice designer at
Wim Crouwel
Willem Hendrik "Wim" Crouwel (; 21 November 1928 – 19 September 2019) was a Dutch people, Dutch graphic designer, Type design#Profession, type designer, and Typography, typographer.
Early life and education
Between 1947 and 1949, he studied ...
's Total Design in Amsterdam and as a junior designer at Form Vijf and Tel Design in The Hague. In 1981, he moved to
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and studied photography at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
where he met Licko.
VanderLans was first introduced to type design while at KABK, where the well-known Dutch type designer and teacher
Gerrit Noordzij
Gerrit Noordzij (2 April 1931 – 17 March 2022) was a Dutch typographer, typeface designer, and author. He started teaching letters and calligraphy at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1960. Motivated to make type accessible to his stude ...
had started an ambitious and influential type and lettering program in 1970. When asked in 2001 for a contribution to a Noordzij tribute, VanderLans wrote: “Noordzij is a very distant memory for me. Although any wisdom regarding type that I carry with me must have come from him.
From 1983–85, he worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in the art department at the
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
newspaper.
VanderLans has received honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Rhode Island School of Design (2004) and California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California (2005).
Emigre
From 1984 until 2005 VanderLans published, edited, and designed
''Emigre'' magazine, a quarterly publication devoted to visual communication and known for its inclusion of design discourse. Andrew Blauvelt, whose writing often occurred in the magazine, wrote that "Emigre covered emerging graphic designers and typographers seldom profiled in typical industry publications. It also published spirited design criticism in its pages–finding itself to be both the message and the messenger of many debates.”
Licko and VanderLans were early adopters of the personal computer, and ''Emigres launch coincided with the release of the
Macintosh computer
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
. They used the new technology to create some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs. Their experimental design aesthetics earned them equal amounts of praise and criticism in the 1990s.
Exposure of Zuzana Licko's fonts through the magazine led to VanderLans and Licko founding
Emigre Fonts in 1985. VanderLans’ main contribution to Emigre Fonts continue to be his type specimen designs. In a review of the book ''Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens 1986-2016'', critic Kenneth FitzGerald remarked that “Emigre’s specimens are notable for the negotiation of practical considerations and creative idealism—the essence of all graphic design. They demonstrate an adept dovetailing of these concerns, crafting a format that stimulates desire then provides an efficient vehicle for satisfying it. A balance is struck between providing an enthusing context for the type while not overwhelming it. Though far from 'neutral,' the framework is evocative and clear.”
Books
* Emigre (The Book): Graphic Design into the Digital Realm, New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold; John Wiley & Sons, 1993
* Emigre: Rosbeek 43, Charles Nypels Award, 1998, Netherlands: Drukkerij Rosbeek, 1998
* Emigre No.70, Selections from Emigre Magazine #1 – #69, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2009
* Departures: Five Milestone Font Families by Emigre, Berkeley, CA: Emigre, 2011
* Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens 1986 - 2016, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2016
Photography
As a parallel interest to his design ventures, VanderLans has been photographing the California environment since he moved there from the Netherlands in 1981. He has authored a total of eleven photo books on the topic, and staged two solo exhibits at
Gallery 16
Gallery 16 is a contemporary art gallery located in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. It is owned by the San Francisco-based painter Griff Williams, and opened in 1993. Artists who have exhibited there include Graham Gillmore, Tuck ...
in San Francisco.
Photography books
* Positively Palmtree, small artist book created as an artist in residence at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester NY, 1985.
* Picture the Southwest, small artist book, part of Emigre No. 7, 1987.
* Palm Desert, Berkeley, CA: Emigre, 1999
* Cucamonga, Berkeley, CA: Emigre, 2000
* Joshua Tree, Berkeley, CA: Emigre, 2001
* Supermarket, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2001
* Pages from an Imaginary Book, Paris, France, Onestar Press, 2003
* Bagdad, Californie, Berkeley, Rodez, France, Éditions du Rouergue, 2004
* Still Lifes, California, 2015
* Still Lifes, U.S.A., Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2017
* Still Lifes, Tokyo, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2018
* Anywhere, California, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2020
* Oleander Sunset, Berkeley, CA: Gingko Press, 2021
Awards
* MacUser Desktop Publisher of the Year Award, 1986
*
Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design The Chrysler Design Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals in innovative works of architecture and design which significantly influenced modern American culture.
Chrysler's awards started in 1993 to recognize six designers based in the Un ...
, 1994
* Publish Magazine Impact Awards, 1996
*
American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal Award, 1997
* Charles Nypels Award for Excellence in Typography, 1998
* Honorary members of the Society of Typographic Arts, Chicago, 2010
* Society of Typographic Aficionados Annual Typography Award, 2013
* 29th New York Type Directors Club Medal, 2016
Museum exhibits
Solo exhibitions
* “Emigre Magazine: Selections from the Permanent Collection,” Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1997
* “Charles Nypels Prize,”
Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, Netherlands, 1998
* “Emigre in Istanbul,” Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, 1999
* “Emigre in Norfolk,”
Old Dominion University
Old Dominion University (Old Dominion or ODU) is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary and is now one of the largest universities in Virginia with ...
Gallery, Norfolk, Virginia, 2005
* “Emigre at Gallery 16,”
Gallery 16
Gallery 16 is a contemporary art gallery located in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. It is owned by the San Francisco-based painter Griff Williams, and opened in 1993. Artists who have exhibited there include Graham Gillmore, Tuck ...
, San Francisco, 2010
* “Emigre magazine: design, discourse and authorship,”
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...
, UK, 2017
General exhibitions
* “Pacific Wave: California Graphic Design,”
Museo Fortuny
The Museo Fortuny or Fortuny Museum is an art museum in San Marco, in central Venice, Italy.
The museum is housed in the Palazzo Pesaro Orfei, now often known as Palazzo Fortuny, where Mariano Fortuny (1871–1949) had a studio in the late ni ...
, Venice, Italy, 1987
* “Graphic Design in America,”
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1989
* “Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture,”
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
, 1996
* “Designer as Author, Voices and Visions,”
Northern Kentucky University
Northern Kentucky University is a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It is primarily an undergraduate institution with over 14,000 students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students. Northern K ...
, 1996
* “Design Culture Now: National Design Triennial,”
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...
, 2000
* “East Coast/West Coast” at Centre du Graphisme,
Echirolles, France, 2002
* "D-Day:le design aujourd'hui," at
Centre Pompidou
The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, 2005
* “Digitally Mastered,”
MoMA
Moma may refer to:
People
* Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist
* Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician
* Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher
Places
; Ang ...
, New York, 2007
* “Quick, Quick, Slow,” Experimentadesign Lisboa 2009,
Berardo Collection Museum
The Berardo Collection Museum (in Portuguese: Museu Colecção Berardo) was a museum of modern and contemporary art in Belém, a district of Lisbon, Portugal. It was replaced by the Conteporary Art Museum - Centro Cultural de Belém in January ...
, Lisbon, Portugal, 2009 (featured Emigre magazine issues10–24)
* “Typographic Tables,” Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy, 2011
* “Deep Surface: Contemporary Ornament and Pattern,” Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, 2011
* “Graphic Design: Now in Production,”
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...
, Minneapolis, 2011 (featured "Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue" and Base 900)
* “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990,”
Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, London, 2011
* "
Standard Deviations
In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, while ...
," MoMA, New York, 2011 (featured 23 digital typefaces for their permanent collection, including five Emigre font families:
Jeffery Keedy
Jeffery Keedy, born 1957, is an American graphic designer, Type design, type designer, writer and Teacher, educator. He is notable as an Essay, essayist and contributor to Book, books and periodicals on graphic design. He is also notable for the de ...
's Keedy Sans,
Jonathan Barnbrook
Jonathan Barnbrook (born 1966), is a British graphic designer, film maker and typographer. He trained at Saint Martin's School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, both in London.
Work
Barnbrook designed the cover artwork of David Bowie's ...
's Mason Serif, Barry Deck's
Template Gothic,
Zuzana Licko
Zuzana Licko (born Zuzana Ličko, 1961) is a Slovak-born American type designer and visual artist known for co-founding Emigre Fonts, a digital type foundry in Berkeley, CA. She has designed and produced numerous digital typefaces including the ...
's Oakland—renamed Lo-Res in 2001—and
P. Scott Makela's
Dead History Dead History is a typeface which explores combining structural elements of both geometric sans-serif and Didone serif typefaces.
History
The Dead history typeface was designed in 1990 by P. Scott Makela and is licensed by Emigre. While Makela ...
)
* “Work from California,” 25th International Biennial of Graphic Design, Brno, Czech Republic, 2012
* “Revolution/Evolution,”
College for Creative Studies
College for Creative Studies (CCS) is a private art school in Detroit, Michigan. It enrolls more than 1,400 students and focuses on arts education. The college is also active in offering art education to children through its Community Arts Part ...
, Detroit, 2014
* “Typeface to Interface,”
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2016
* “California Graphic Design, 1975–95,”
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...
, Los Angeles, 2018
* “Between the Lines: Typography in LACMA’s Collection,”
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...
, Los Angeles, 2019
Permanent collections
*
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...
holds a complete set of Emigre magazine in their permanent collection.
*
Design Museum
The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...
in London holds a complete set of Emigre magazine in their permanent collection.
*
Letterform Archive
Letterform Archive is a non-profit museum and special collections library in San Francisco, California dedicated to collecting materials on the history of lettering, typography, printing, and graphic design. It is curated by graphic designer Rob S ...
holds the Emigre Archives in their permanent collection.
*
Museum für Gestaltung
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...
(Museum of Design, Zurich) holds Emigre magazine issues in their permanent collection.
*
Museum of Modern Art in New York holds a complete set of Emigre magazine, and five digital fonts from the Emigre Fonts library in their permanent collection.
*
Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco holds a complete set of Emigre magazine in their permanent collection.
See also
*
List of AIGA medalists
Following is a list of AIGA medalists who have been awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts medal.
On its website, AIGA says "The medal of the AIGA, the most distinguished in the field, is awarded to individuals in recognition of their exc ...
*
First Things First 2000 manifesto The First Things First 2000 manifesto, launched by ''Adbusters'' magazine in 1999, was an updated version of the earlier First Things First manifesto written and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer.
The 2000 manifesto was signed ...
References
Additional online resources
* Eye (Website),
Cult of the Ugly” by Steven Heller, 1993
Letter to Emigre Magazine (PDF) by Gunnar Swanson, 1994
* 2x4 (Website),
Designer as Author” by Michael Rock, 1996
*SpeakUp (Website)
by Armin Vit, 2002.
* Typotheque (Website),
Context in Critique” review of Emigre #64, Rant, by Dmitri Siegel, 2004
* Typotheque (Website),
Rudy VanderLans, editor of Emigre” interview by David Casacuberta and Rosa Llop, 2004
* AIGA (Website),
An Interview with Rudy VanderLans: Still Subversive After All These Years” by Steven Heller, 2004
Design Observer(Website), “Emigre: An Ending,” by Rick Poynor, 2005
* TapeOp (Website),
Rudy VanderLans: Emigre No. 69: The End” review by John Baccigaluppi, 2008
* Eye (Website),
The farewell tour syndrome” book review by Emily King, 2009
* Communication Arts (Website),
Emigre No.70: The Look Back Issue” book review by Angelynn Grant, 2009
* Dwell (Website),
Emigre No.70” book review by Miyoko Ohtake, 2009
* Print (Website),
Emigre’s Lucky Number” by Steven Heller, 2009
* Print magazine (Website),
Design Couples: Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko" interview by Caitlin Dover, 2010
* Fast Company (Website),
Type Master: An Interview with Emigre’s Rudy VanderLans" by Alissa Walker, 2010.
* The Atlantic (Website),
Can the Rule-Breaking Font Designers of Three Decades Ago Still Break Rules?” by Steven Heller, 2012
*Plazm Magazine (Website),
In Conversation with Emigre by Sara Dougher and Joshua Berger, 2013
* Communication Arts (Website),
Emigre Fonts” book review by Angelynn Grant, 2016
*Print (Website),
The Legibility Wars of the ‘80s and ‘90s” 2016
* AIGA, Eye on Design (Website),
Emigre Type Foundry Pretty Much Designed the ‘90s—Here’s What it Looked Like” book review by Angela Riechers, 2016
* MyFonts (Website)
by Jan Middendorp, 2016.
* Fontstand (Website),
Emigre: Time and Time Again” by Sébastien Morlighem, 2016
* Klim Type Foundry (Website),
Tilting at windmills” Rudy vanderLans replies to “Welcome to the infill font foundry,” 2016
* University of Reading (Website),
Emigre magazine: design, discourse and authorship” an exhibition curated by Francisca Monteiro and Rick Poynor, 2017
* Typography & Graphic Communication (Website),
Emigre magazine: design, discourse and authorship” exhibition, 2017
* Huffington Post (Website),
One of Today’s Most Popular Fonts Has a Wild Centuries-Long History” by Maddie Crum, 2017
* ReadyMag Stories (Website),
Emigre” by Zhdan Philippov and Vitaly Volk, 2020
*
Typography and Legibility: An Analysis of Tschichold, Licko, and VanderLans” (PDF) by Chaney Boyle, 2020
* MoMA (Website)
Emigre Magazine, issues 1-69 permanent collection
* MoMA (Website)
Oakland typeface permanent collection
Additional print resources
* Bouvet, Michel, ''East Coast West Coast: Graphistes aux États-unis'', Paris, France, Les Éditions Textuel, 2002. Essay on history of Emigre.
* Dawson, Peter, ''The Field Guide to Typography: Typefaces in the Urban Landscape'', New York, NY, Prestel, 2013. Interview with Rudy VanderLans & Zuzana Licko.
* Eskilson, Stephen J., ''Graphic Design: A New History'', London, UK, Laurence King Publishing, 2007. Essay on Emigre in chapter on “Postmodern Typography.”
* Heller, Stephen, ed., ''Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design''. New York, NY, Allworth Press with School of Visual Arts, 2014. Essay on Emigre in chapter on "Mass Media.”
* Lupton, Ellen, ''Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture'', New York, NY, Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. Short profile of Emigre and Zuzana Licko's typefaces. Book published in conjunction with exhibit at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
* McCarthy, Steven, ''The Designer as Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur, Curator & Collaborator: New Models for Communicating'', Amsterdam, Netherlands, BIS, 2013. Emigre referenced throughout, and short profile of Emigre in chapter on “Typographic Design Authorship.”
* Meggs, Philip B., ed., ''A History of Graphic Design'', New York, NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Profile of Emigre in chapter on “Pioneers of Digital Graphic Design.”
* Poynor, Rick, ''Design Without Boundaries: Visual Communication in Transition'', London, UK, Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1998. Emigre referenced in essay “Cult of the Ugly,” and one essay, “Into the Digital Realm,” on Emigre.
* Poynor, Rick, ''No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism'', New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2003. Emigre referenced throughout.
* Shaughnessy, Adrian, ''How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul'', London, UK, Laurence King Publishing, 2005. Interview with Rudy VanderLans.
External links
Emigre official siteEmigre Archives
at Letterform Archive (all issues are available in full online)
created b
Jessica Barness
for The Goldstein Museum of Design
The Goldstein Museum of Design (GMD) is a museum on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. It is part of the University’s College of Design. GMD was founded in 1976 and is the only museum in the Upper Midwest specializing in design ...
Emigre Fonts at Adobe Fonts
1955 births
Living people
Dutch graphic designers
Dutch typographers and type designers
Dutch magazine founders
Design writers
People from Voorburg
University of California, Berkeley alumni
AIGA medalists
{{graphic-designer-stub