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
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
, CA. She has designed and produced numerous digital typefaces including the popular
Mrs Eaves
Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and b ...
, Modula,
Filosofia, and Matrix. As a corresponding interest she also create
ceramic sculpturestextile prints
and jacquard weavings.
Early life
Licko was born in Bratislava
Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...
, Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
and came to the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
with her family as a child. She studied architecture, photography, and computer programming before earning a degree in graphic communications at the University of California at 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 univ ...
.
Licko was introduced to computers by her father, a biomathematician at the University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...
. She would help him with data processing during her summer breaks.[VanderLans, Rudy, Zuzana Licko, Mary E. Gray, and Jeffery Keedy. Emigre: Graphic Design into the Digital Realm. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1994.] The first font she created on a computer was a Greek alphabet, adapted for the pen plotter, which her father used on his graph printouts.
When she started her university education, her goal was to earn a degree in architecture, but she changed to a visual studies major when she discovered her passion after taking graphic design and typography classes.[ While at Berkeley, Licko took a calligraphy class, but struggled with it, because she was forced to write with her right hand even though she is left-handed. This experience influenced her rejection of many traditional type design practices as she started exploring the capabilities of the Macintosh computer.][
In an interview featured in ''Eye'', Licko described her creative relationship with her husband ]Rudy VanderLans
Rudy VanderLans (born 1955, Voorburg) is a Dutch graphic designer, photographer, and the co-founder of Emigre Fonts with his wife Zuzana Licko. Emigre Fonts is an independent type foundry in Berkeley, CA. He was also the art director and editor of ...
:
Emigre
In 1985, Licko and VanderLans started Emigre Graphics which had grown out of Emigre magazine, a publication co-founded by VanderLans and two Dutch friends the previous year. VanderLans also started incorporating the bitmap typefaces that Licko designed on the Apple Macintosh
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 ...
in his layouts wit
issue # 2
Licko's experimental type designs became a prominent feature of the magazine for its entire run. Licko began selling commercial licenses of its digital fonts to users worldwide, first under the name Emigre Graphics and later as Emigre Fonts.I started my venture with bitmap type designs, created for the coarse resolutions of the computer screen and dot matrix printer. The challenge was that because the early computers were so limited in what they could do you really had to design something special. Even if it was difficult to adapt calligraphy to lead and later lead to photo technology, it could be done, but it was physically impossible to adapt 8-point Goudy Old Style to 72 dots to the inch. In the end you couldn't tell Goudy Old Style from Times Roman or any other serif text face.
Licko has designed at least three dozen font families. In the mid-1990s, she worked on two notable revivals: Mrs Eaves
Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and b ...
(based on Baskerville
Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England, and cut into metal by punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville is classified as a Serif#Transitional, transitional typeface, intended as a ...
) and Filosofia (based on Bodoni
Bodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas o ...
). Updating these historical models for use both in print and on-screen, Licko included extensive ligatures with each typeface.
Emigre
is not just for fonts. In recent years, Licko has turned her attention to creating ceramics and textiles under the same moniker. In an 2017 interview with Zuzana Kvetkova, Licko shares about her love of ceramics and her process:I’ve always enjoyed creating ceramic objects, and I need this to balance out the ephemeral nature of digital work. I find that my current work on modular ceramic sculptures and fabric prints is actually an extension of type design. I’m using font software to create sketches for my ceramic sculptures, which exist of repeating elements. Each sculpture has a variety of shapes that can be combined to make different sculptures. The font software helps me go through the possible variations. The elements for the textile designs are also created as fonts, which I configure into various patterns. Perhaps my focusing on a physical medium is a reaction against everything being consumed digitally these days.
Fonts designed by Licko
*Bitmaps: Emperor, Universal, Oakland and Emigre, 1985, re-released a
Lo-Res
2001
Modula
1985
Citizen
1986
Matrix
1986, re-released as Matrix II, 2007
Variex
1988 (collaboration with Rudy VanderLans)
Oblong
1988 (collaboration with Rudy VanderLans)
Senator
1988
Lunatix
1988
Elektrix
1989
Triplex
1989 Condensed added in 1991
Totally Gothic
1990
Journal
1990
Whirligig
1994
Dogma
1994
Modula Round, Outlined & Ribbed
1995
Soda Script
1995
Base Nine and Twelve
1995
Mrs Eaves
1996
Filosofia and Filosofia Grand
1996
Base Monospace
1997
Hypnopaedia
1997
Tarzana
1998
Solex
2000
Fairplex
2002
Puzzler
2005
Mrs Eaves XL Serif
2009
Mr Eaves Sans
2009
Mr Eaves XL Sans
2009
Base 900, 2010Program
2013
Tangly
2018
Crackly
2019
Essays by Licko
*
Ambition/Fear
', ''Emigre'' 11, with Rudy VanderLans, 1989.
*
Discovery by Design
', ''Emigre'' 32, edited by Rudy VanderLans
Rudy VanderLans (born 1955, Voorburg) is a Dutch graphic designer, photographer, and the co-founder of Emigre Fonts with his wife Zuzana Licko. Emigre Fonts is an independent type foundry in Berkeley, CA. He was also the art director and editor of ...
, 1994.
*
Ceramics and Type Design: Differently Similar
', online at the Emigre website.
* ''Emigre: Graphic Design into the Digital Realm.''
Awards
Licko and her husband Rudy VanderLans won the Chrysler Design Award in 1994. Apart from winning this award, their work on Emigre also won the Publish magazine Impact Award in 1996. A year later, they got an American Institute for Graphic Arts Gold Medal Award. Soon after, in 1998 they were awarded the Charles Nyples Award in Innovation in Typography.Society of Typographic Aficionados
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societi ...
awarded Licko the 2013 SOTA Typography Award, citing her "intellectual, highly-structured approach to type design" and her contributions to the digital typography industry.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
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
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, 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 art, modern and contemporary art in Santa Maria de Belém, Belém, a district of Lisbon, Portugal. It was replaced by the Conteporary Art Museum - Cen ...
, 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'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 ...
* Filosofia
*Mrs Eaves
Mrs Eaves is a transitional serif typeface designed by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville, which was designed in Birmingham, England, in the 1750s. Mrs Eaves adapts Baskerville for use in display contexts, such as headings and b ...
Notes
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
*''Graphic Design USA 18''.
Critical Conditions: Zuzana Licko, Rudy VanderLans, and the Emigre Spirit
by Michael Dooley, 1998.
* 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
*Étapes magazine (Website
Zuzana Licko interview with Pascal Béjean
2010
* Fast Company (Website),
Type Master: An Interview with Emigre’s Rudy VanderLans
" by Alissa Walker, 2010.
*MoMA (Website)
Emigre Magazine, issues 1-69
permanent collection, 2011
* MoMA (Website)
Oakland typeface
permanent collection, 2011
* 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
100 Best Fonts
2015
* Print (Website),
The Legibility Wars of the ‘80s and ‘90s
” 2016
* Communication Arts (Website),
Emigre Fonts
” book review by Angelynn Grant, 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
* Huffington Post (Website),
One of Today’s Most Popular Fonts Has a Wild Centuries-Long History
” by Maddie Crum, 2017
*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
* 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
Additional print resources
Additional print resources
*Bouvet, Michel, ''East Coast West Coast: Graphistes aux États-unis'', Paris, France, Les Éditions Textuel, 2002. Essay on history of Emigre.
*Cees W. De Jong, Alston W. Purvis, and Friedrich Friedl. 2005. C''reative Type: A Sourcebook of Classical and Contemporary Letterforms''. Thames & Hudson.
*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
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 FontsZuzana Licko
{{DEFAULTSORT:Licko, Zuzana
1961 births
AIGA medalists
Living people
Slovak emigrants to the United States
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Women graphic designers
American graphic designers