In 1870, when Jacob August Riis immigrated to America from Denmark on the steamship Iowa, he rode in steerage with nothing but the clothes on his back, 40 borrowed dollars in his pocket, and a locket containing a single hair from the girl he loved. It must have been hard for the 21-year-old Riis to imagine that in just a few short years, he would be pallin’ around with a future president, become a pioneer in photojournalism, and help reform housing policy in New York City.

Jacob Riis struggled through his first few years in the United States. Unable to find a steady job, he worked as a farmhand, ironworker, brick-layer, carpenter, and salesman, and experienced the worst aspects of American urbanism--crime, sickness, squalor--in the low-rent tenements and lodging houses that would eventually inspire the young Danish immigrant to dedicate himself to improving living conditions for the city’s lower-class.

Through a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work, he got a job as a journalist and a platform for exposing the plight of the lower class community. Eventually, Riis became a police reporter for The New York Tribune, covering some of the city's most crime-ridden districts, a job that would would lead to fame and a friendship with police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who called Riis "the best American I ever knew." Riis knew what it was to suffer, to starve, and to be homeless, and, though his prose was sometimes sensationalist and even occasionally prejudiced, he had what Roosevelt called "the great gift of making others see what he saw and feel what he felt."

Mehemed Fehmy Agha

August 1940 Vogue Cover

1940

from a photoshoot by the great German fashion photographer Horst. Agha introduced many important features to Vogue, pioneering the use of duotone, colour photographs and full-bleed images, and commissioning Picasso, Matisse and Dalí to design covers

Dr. Mehemed Fehmy Agha was first magazine art editor that was titled art director. Although another famous art director Alexey Brodovitch, made the biggest impact on the magazine design, Mehemed Fehmy Agha will always be remembered as a first person that pioneered innovative approaches in magazine art direction.

Story about Mehemed Fehmy Agha goes like this. Around 1928 famous publisher Conde Nast traveled to Europe to find himself a new art editor after Heyworth Campbell had resigned. At this time Mr. Nast had to fill this spot in all three of his notable publications, Vogue, Vanity Fair and House and Garden, since Campbell was art editor in all three.

Conde Nast traveled to Paris, London and Berlin, cities where Vogue had its foreign editions. In Berlin he found young Russian-Turkish artist who was, prior to his job in Berlin, working in Paris as a studio chief of French Vogue. Nast was very impressed with the interview that he had with young Agha, so much that the following morning he called his editors of Vogue and Vanity Fair, Edna Woolman Chase and Frank Crowninshield and announced them that he found a replacement for Campbell.

In 1929, Agha came to the USA to take on a role of art director at Vogue. From the first moment it was clear that Agha was no ordinary designer. His charm and charisma together with the extraordinary educational background brought him the nickname Dr. Agha.

Agha was an exceptional artist, with strong scientific and technical skills. His typographic and photographic skills were impeccable, and he was fluent in five languages. His aesthetic skills made him the perfect person to lead Vanity Fair’s and Vogue’s design teams, and at those times these magazines were lacking good visual concept.

At this point Agha introduced a concept to the publishing world in the United States, and that concept was to integrate design into the editorial content, thus creating a role of a key figure responsible for this, art director. As Agha stated “The visual articulation of a magazine was not to be an act after editorial fact, but an integral function of the editorial process”.

As it was obvious Dr. Agha raised the level of art direction and design was no longer regarded as decorative but as an integral part of the modern magazine.
He was a pioneer in the use of sans-serif typefaces, photo montage, duotones and full color photography which he used wherever possible. He was the first designer that spread the images across the gutter and he used full bleed images.

 Mehemed Fehmy Agha

July 1933 Vogue Cover

1933

Designed by art director Mehemed Fehmy Agha from a photoshoot by the great German fashion photographer Horst. Agha introduced many important features to Vogue, pioneering the use of duotone, colour photographs and full-bleed images, and commissioning Picasso, Matisse and Dalí to design covers

Dr. Mehemed Fehmy Agha was first magazine art editor that was titled art director. Although another famous art director Alexey Brodovitch, made the biggest impact on the magazine design, Mehemed Fehmy Agha will always be remembered as a first person that pioneered innovative approaches in magazine art direction.

Story about Mehemed Fehmy Agha goes like this. Around 1928 famous publisher Conde Nast traveled to Europe to find himself a new art editor after Heyworth Campbell had resigned. At this time Mr. Nast had to fill this spot in all three of his notable publications, Vogue, Vanity Fair and House and Garden, since Campbell was art editor in all three.

Conde Nast traveled to Paris, London and Berlin, cities where Vogue had its foreign editions. In Berlin he found young Russian-Turkish artist who was, prior to his job in Berlin, working in Paris as a studio chief of French Vogue. Nast was very impressed with the interview that he had with young Agha, so much that the following morning he called his editors of Vogue and Vanity Fair, Edna Woolman Chase and Frank Crowninshield and announced them that he found a replacement for Campbell.

In 1929, Agha came to the USA to take on a role of art director at Vogue. From the first moment it was clear that Agha was no ordinary designer. His charm and charisma together with the extraordinary educational background brought him the nickname Dr. Agha.

Agha was an exceptional artist, with strong scientific and technical skills. His typographic and photographic skills were impeccable, and he was fluent in five languages. His aesthetic skills made him the perfect person to lead Vanity Fair’s and Vogue’s design teams, and at those times these magazines were lacking good visual concept.

At this point Agha introduced a concept to the publishing world in the United States, and that concept was to integrate design into the editorial content, thus creating a role of a key figure responsible for this, art director. As Agha stated “The visual articulation of a magazine was not to be an act after editorial fact, but an integral function of the editorial process”.

As it was obvious Dr. Agha raised the level of art direction and design was no longer regarded as decorative but as an integral part of the modern magazine.
He was a pioneer in the use of sans-serif typefaces, photo montage, duotones and full color photography which he used wherever possible. He was the first designer that spread the images across the gutter and he used full bleed images.

 Alexey Brodovich

Harper's Bazaar

1935

Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; Russian: Алексе́ й Вячесла́ вович Бродо́ вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to

Brodovitch, the art director of Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958, hired modern European artists, such as Man Ray (whose photography appears here) to bring a modern design aesthetic to the magazine. In this layout, the figure's oblique thrust inspired a dynamic typographic page with several sizes and weights of geometric sans serifs.

Robert Capa

“Death in the Making”

1938

book describing the struggle of those opposing the Fascist overthrow of democratic governments.

Robert Capa’s Death in the Making, published while the war was still underway, would cement his reputation as one of the world’s most important photographers. The images capture the elation of (short-lived) victories by the Republicans; the suffering of people who’d lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their loved ones; and the courage of both men and women who risked everything for their beliefs.

After leaving Spain, Capa went on to work for Life, Collier’s, and other magazines. He published additional books of photographs, and eventually co-founded the Magnum Photo Agency with Henri Cartier-Bresson and others. He died in 1954, after stepping on a landmine while on assignment in Vietnam.

Joseph Binder
Cover for Graphis Magazine

1948

For image on right notice references to Stenberg poster of 1926.
Fortune Magazine represented the modern corporate interest and financial industry.

Binder was a European refugee who brought his Viennese training under Alfred Roller to the US. This was a fundamentally conservative publication which reflected that in its illustrative styles.

Binder, Joseph
August cover for Fortune Magazine

1932

For image on right notice references to Stenberg poster of 1926.
Fortune Magazine represented the modern corporate interest and financial industry.

Binder was a European refugee who brought his Viennese training under Alfred Roller to the US. This was a fundamentally conservative publication which reflected that in its illustrative styles.

Cipe Pineles

July 1949 Seventeen Magazine Cover

1949

Austrian-born Cipe Pineles emigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1923. Following high school, she attended Pratt Institute and spent a year after graduation—supported by a scholarship—painting still lifes and trying to break into the design world. After struggling to start her career in the face of sexism, she found a job with Contempora, Ltd.

Condé Nast’s wife noticed Pineles’ work at Contempora, and soon enough, Cipe was working under Mehemed Agha on Vanity Fair and Vogue. Agha sounds like the best of bosses: hard to please, generous with creative freedom, insistent that his employees try new things. Pineles flourished under his leadership; she learned the ins and outs of creative direction, and demonstrated an eye for new talent in illustration and photography.

The skills that Cipe Pineles polished under Agha’s tutelage well prepared her for a position as Art Director of Glamour mag. With this fancy (and very real) new title, Pineles became the first female AD of a “mass-market American publication”.
After a brief stint in Paris at servicewomen’s magazine, Pineles lent her direction to Seventeen magazine. The art director worked closely with Editor Helen Valentine and Promotion Director Estelle Ellis to craft content that respected teens as young women, not silly little girls. Pineles was ground-breaking in that she sourced editorial art from well-established fine artists; how better to tell young women, “I respect your intelligence”?

Pineles later worked as an AD for Charm, a magazine for working-women—still a new publication concept in 1950. Pineles said of her time at Charm: “you might say we tried to convey the attractiveness of reality, as opposed to the glitter of a never-never land”. There was fashion, but the direction centered around the woman-as-professional.

Ladislav Sutnar
Sweets catalogue mark

1942
Disarmingly simple, this mark, with its harmonious figure-ground relationship, established the typographic character for Sweet's printed material.

Knud Lönberg-Holm and Ladislav Sutnar

CATALOG DESIGN: NEW PATTERNS IN PRODUCT INFORMATION

1944

 New York: Sweet's Catalog Service, 1944. Quarto. Printed paper-covered boards. Wire spiral binding. Yellow vellum endsheets. Unpaginated [72 pp]. Publisher’s supplements [2x] laid in. Exceptionally graphic design and typography throughout. White letterpressed pages bright, tight and clean. Board edges with a trace of wear and a few mild scratches to rear panel. An impossibly well-preserved copy: the finest we have handled. A fine copy. Rare.

“It seems to me that Catalog Design could become a bible for business man and the graphic artists whose task is to prepare product information for the general public. In its concise and exact statements this book shows a logical and inventive approach which when followed will lead to better design.” — László Moholy-Nagy

The fine press craftsmen of William E. Rudge's Sons glimpsed the future when they printed CATALOG DESIGN for Sweet's Catalog Service in 1944. Designer Ladislav Sutnar expanded his 16-page thesis CONTROLLED VISUAL FLOW, published in 1943 by Marquardt & Company Fine Papers as part of their Design and Paper series, into a fully-realized system for producing complex and harmonious data sets.

“This study of catalog design describes the development of new information patterns through a technique based on analytically determined standards. Its structure follows the procedure of this technique involving: 1) analysis of the design problem, setting up new standards for function, content, and format; 2) the development of standard design elements; 3) the integration of these elements into new design patterns.” — Lönberg-Holm and Sutnar

Sweet’s Catalog Service (established in 1906) was an information clearing house, evaluating hundreds of catalogs of individual manufacturers with the aim of making the resulting information searachable in an optimal way. Information organization was the central issue, and optimizing it through visual means was an important element in the enterprise, hence the need for a competent art director.

U. S. industrial catalog production in the early 1940s was not in tune with the faster rhythms of the modern tempo. According to an undated internal Sweet’s memorandum “ . . . an industrial catalog is far from an inspiring project, we picture it as cumbersome, colorless, indifferently-printed item of necessity nothing [other] than dreary inventory . . .”

Major flaws included a proliferation of long descriptive texts and mediocre layout, as the manufacturers usually commissioned their catalog production to local printers who simply followed their every whim. The need for informative, relevant and quick-to-read advertising, common in Europe for more than a decade, appeared in the U. S. only with the heightened tempo of production due to the war effort.

Paul Rand
Direction, cover

1940
Rand's ability to manipulate visual form and his skillful analysis of communications content, reducing it to a symbolic essence without being sterile or dull, allowed him to become widely influential while still in his twenties. He tended to seize upon collage and montage as a means to bring concepts, images, textures, and even objects into a cohesive whole. In this magazine cover, he uses the crisply rectangular yet handwritten gift tag in contrast with the stencil-lettered title on a torn-edged collage element; a Christmas package wrapped in barbed wire serves as a grim reminder of the spread of the global war. Finally, the red dots are symbolically ambiguous, becoming holiday decorations or blood drops.

This is a prime example of Rand’s use of visual metaphor.

Josef Müller-Brockmann

Der Film

1960

In this poster Muller-Brockmann employs the tools of Swiss modernist style; sans-serif type, clear hierarchy and contrast, adherence to the grid; precise typographic positioning; dramatic amount of white space (or in this case, black space).

Armin Hofmann
Gisellle, poster
1959
International Typographic Style
An organic, kinetic, soft photographic image contrasts intensely with geometric, static and hard-edged typographic shapes in this poster for the Basel theater production of Giselle.

Josef Müller-Brockmann

Grid Systems in Graphic Design

1981

In these masterful sketches of grid layouts Muller-Brockmann codified the use of the grid by displaying the variety of layouts accomplished by a single underlying grid structure. He also mapped methods for establishing typographic hierarchy with minimal shifts in style, size, or color.

Grid systems suited the new landscape of corporate communications, both internally and externally, by embodying the precision and clarity in a visual presentation the corporation hoped to achieve in the public’s mind. These layouts in their communications allowed corporations to present a modern, organized clarity of purpose, (even if the reality didn’t bear that out).

Adrian Frutiger

Univers Typeface

1957

Univers is the name of a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954. Originally conceived and released by Deberny & Peignot in 1957, the type library was acquired in 1972 by Haas. Then transferred into the D. Stempel AG and Linotype collection in 1985 and 1989 respectively upon the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) acquisition and closing.

Univers is one of a group of neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces, all released in 1957, that includes Folio and Neue Haas Grotesk (later renamed Helvetica). These three faces are sometimes confused with each other, because each is based on the 1898 typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk. These typefaces figure prominently in the Swiss Style of graphic design.

Different weights and variations within the type family are designated by the use of numbers rather than names, a system since adopted by Frutiger for other type designs. Frutiger envisioned a large family with multiple widths and weights that maintained a unified design idiom. However, the actual typeface names within Univers family include both number and letter suffixes.

Currently, Univers type family consists of 44 faces, with 16 uniquely numbered weight, width, position combinations. 20 fonts have oblique positions. 8 fonts support Central European character set. 8 support Cyrillic character set. The beauty of Univers is in its seamless integration of different weights and styles.

Emory Douglas

Black Panther Newspaper

1967-1980's
Emory Douglas (born May 24, 1943) worked as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until the Party disbanded in the 1980s. His graphic art was featured in most issues of the newspaper The Black Panther (which had a peak circulation of 139,000 per week in 1970).[1] As the art director, designer, and main illustrator for The Black Panther newspaper, Douglas created images that became icons, representing black American struggles during the 1960s and 1970s.

Charles and Ray Eames

Low Armchair

Molded Fiberglass

1950
molded fiberglass and wire grid chair designs

The Eames helped usher in the great post-war expansion in consumption of well-designed materials for the home using technologies and materials developed for wartime purposes. Their designs were efficient, modular, colorful, and represented the “

Emory Douglas

Power to the People
1970
"Free the New York Panther 21." This poster was produced by The Committee to Defend the Panther, the leadership of the Eastern Region of the Black Panther Party. The Panther 21 were arrested in a raid in April 1969 and charged with conspiracy to blow up the New York Botanical Garden, as well as other sites. On May 3, 1971 all 21 defendants were acquitted.

Peter Brandt
Q. And babies? A. And babies.
1970
Vietnam War
This poster was designed for the Art Workers Coalition by Peter Brandt from the photograph by military photographer Ronald L. Haeberle. The poster is a condemnation of the My Lai massacre, which sparked a broad-based protest in the United States against the Vietnam War. The text comes from court-martial testimony of Lt William Cally.

Nick Ut

The Terror of War

1972

Upper left: Phan Thị Kim Phúc, O.Ont (born 1963) (photographed by Nick Ut) is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the child subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972. The iconic photo taken in Trang Bang by AP photographer Nick Ut shows her at about age nine running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack.

Audio tapes of then-president Richard Nixon, in conversation with his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, reveal that Nixon doubted the authenticity of the photograph, thinking it might have been "fixed." After the release of this tape, Út commented, "Even though it has become one of the most memorable images of the twentieth century, President Nixon once doubted the authenticity of my photograph when he saw it in the papers on 12 June 1972.... The picture for me and unquestionably for many others could not have been more real. The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam war itself. The horror of the Vietnam war recorded by me did not have to be fixed. That terrified little girl is still alive today and has become an eloquent testimony to the authenticity of that photo. That moment thirty years ago will be one Kim Phúc and I will never forget. It has ultimately changed both our lives."

Wes Wilson
Concert poster for The Association
1966
This psychedelic poster advertises a concert for The Association. During the time of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and women's liberation, posters reflected the social unrest in America, and they became highly collected. This image was created entirely with text, and shows evidence of inspiration from op-art and the Vienna Secession printed work.

Milton Glaser

Bob Dylan record cover and poster

1966

After suffering serious injuries in a motorcycle accident in 1966, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was rendered bedridden and rumored to be dead. To generate positive publicity for his forthcoming album, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, CBS records commissioned Milton Glaser to design a special poster to be packaged with the album. Taking inspiration from a Marcel Duchamp self-portrait, Glaser depicted Dylan in profile, his abundant curly hair rendered in saturated colors that stood out in high contrast from the white ground. The energetic design with its swirling streams of color evokes the visual effects of the psychedelic drugs that were gaining popularity amongst members of the counter culture.
Gallery label from 2016.

Herb Lubalin and the International Typeface Corporation

U&lc

1970-1999

One of the first publications intended specifically for the design community, U&lc (shorthand for Upper and lower case) was a product of Herb Lubalin and the International Typeface Corporation. The production run of the magazine lasted from 1970 to 1999 and there were over 120 issues produced during that time. The magazine was an effort to display and advertise for the latest typefaces from ITC, which was the first type foundry to have nothing to do with the production of metal type.

Herb Lubalin served as art director for 11 years, until his death in 1981, and worked with a laundry list of talented designers to produce each issue using the new fonts that ITC had to offer. The publication featured often experimental typographic compositions juxtaposed with illustrations, cartoons, imagery and rhetoric talking about the benefits of the new type designs. It was a success among the design and typography communities and became an instant collectors item as it ushered in an era for expressive typography.

Wolfgang Weingart

Typographic Experiments
1969
Wolfgang Weingart worked with lead type and letterpress systems from 1968 to 1974, constantly questioning the typography of order and neatness that symbolized the International or Swiss style of typography so identified with Modernism. These are some of his typographic experiments in which traditional word spacing and letters pacing concepts dating to the medieval manuscript were called into question.

Dan Friedman

After studying at the Ulm Institute of Design and the Basel School of Design, Dan Friedman returned to the United States and taught courses at Yale University and Philadelphia College of Art. At a time when letterpress typography was collapsing but the new photographic and computer-generated processes were still evolving, Friedman addressed the problem of teaching the basics of a new typography through syntactic and semantic investigations, using such ordinary copy as the daily weather report. The exercises of a student, Rosalie Hanson, are seen here. The contrasts explored are as follows: functional/unconventional; legible/readable; simple/complex; orderly/disorderly; legible/unpredictable; static/ dynamic; banal/original.

Katherine McCoy

Cranbrook recruiting poster
1989

This poster, designed by Katherine McCoy, uses photomontage to explore the joining of image and text in design.
“Typography as discourse” was the term McCoy used at Cranbrook to convey the sense of a conversation between text and image. Cranbrook was highly influenced by Weingart’s experimentation in Basel.
Deliberate attempts to disrupt the reading experience.

April Greiman

“Does It Make Sense?”

1986

is regarded as one of the most influential designers of the digital age. She has been called a pioneer in this regard, making it acceptable for a graphic designer to explore their craft using a computer. In 1984, computers were seen by much of the public as science fiction props, specialized industry tools, or subverted novelties. The design community regarded them as an embarrassment to the long history and craft of an art form.
A native New Yorker, April is a graduate of the legendary Basel School of Design in Switzerland. Already making waves in America's design community, in 1986 she accepted the role as guest designer for issue #133 of the influential Design Quarterly magazine. Not only did she shake up the magazine’s format by creating an issue that unfolded into a 3' x 6' poster, she produced the work solely on the blasphemous computer, which she began working with two years prior.

The issue, entitled “Does It Make Sense?,” contained a life size, nude self-portrait, layered with symbols and typography (above) became an instant industry-benchmark and forced the design world to sit up and take notice of the contributions computers could provide.

Though sometimes overshadowed by this great feat in guiding an industry to change, April's career continued to push boundaries in ways that are still felt. Schooled by the famous New Wave master Wolfgang Weingart, April is also credited with introducing America to New Wave, postmodern design.

By experimenting with typography and image placement, in direct contrast to the rigid swiss grids of the past, New Wave postmodernists challenged the notion of modernist ordering systems and asked designers to experiment with the artistic possibilities that lay beyond the grid.

David Kirby

The picture represents this skeletal young man surrounded by his family in his last few moments on this earth. It was originally shot in black and white two years before and became notorious thanks to the clever use Toscani made of it. First of all, he decided that a coloured picture would have had a stronger impact on the viewer. The shades he used are soft and slightly faded and the final result gives the idea of looking at a painting rather that a real-life picture. It is not clear whether it was done on purpose or by coincidence, but this choice subliminally bestowed in the picture a holy aura that tends to relieve the campaign from its highly arguable content. Subliminal messages are perceived by our subconscious and with this sort of association with faith and religion, Toscani probably tried to reach people’s inner feelings. Besides, it is not even the only allusion to religion. That desperate final hug of David and his father has been frequently compared to the famous sculpture “La Pietà” by Michelangelo Buonarroti, representing a dying Jesus laying on the lap of the Virgin Mary after the crucifixion. Probably, the similarities pointed out by the audience were strictly related to the single visual aspect, but digging deeper another interesting and far more controversial comparison can be made. Just like Jesus, – unjustly crucified because of people’s cruelty and ignorance, a victim of AIDS is subjected to the same treatment. At that time, clericals and devotees used to refer to the disease as a “divine punishment” and a “consequence of moral decadence”, a belief that was largely spread within the society. Toscani’s decision to show such a theme on giant billboards on the streets where anyone could see them, challenged this unfavourable party and hardly raised any awareness about it. The religious message became an additional pretext to cry scandal and blasphemy rather than cause people compassion and interest.

Emigre magazine was published a total of 69 times, usually irregularly, over the years between 1984 and 2005. One of the first publications to use Macintosh computers, Emigre influenced the move towards desktop publishing within the graphic design community. But that was not the end of its influence. Art directors Rudy Vanderlands and Zuzana Licko entranced designers, photographers and typographers alike with their use of use of experimental layouts and opinionated articles.

The focus of the magazine moved from culture to designers to design itself, with an increasing focus on the publication and promotion of varied articles on design by many different authors. The magazine also changed formats several times during its career switching from an oversized publication to a text-friendly reader and then to a multimedia format, from issue 60 to 65, which came with a CD or DVD.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Emigre No. 70
The Look Back Issue

Emigre was initially a magazine about actual émigrés. Very few people remember it that way, but the revolutionary design publication was founded by immigrants — including husband-and-wife duo Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko — in order to present “the unique perspective of contemporary poets, writers, journalists, graphic designers, photographers, architects, and artists who live or have lived outside their native countries.”

With an intended audience of so-called exiles, Emigre originally set out to be “the magazine that ignores boundaries” of a specifically geopolitical nature. Hence, the bold, passport-style thumbprint lurking past the threshold of the first cover. Notice, too, how émigré’s accents have stealthily migrated south, down into the letters themselves, where they resemble swinging doors. The first issue’s content focused on topics like moving to California and watching Sumo wrestling in Japan, but the typographic details foreshadowed Emigre’s further departures.

Emigre, Inc. is a digital type foundry based in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1984, coinciding with the birth of the Macintosh computer, the Emigre team, consisting of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, with the addition of Tim Starback in 1993, were among the early adaptors to the new digital technology.

From 1984 until 2005 Emigre published the infamous Emigre magazine, a quarterly publication devoted to visual communication. Emigre created some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs winning them both world-wide acclaim and much criticism. The exposure of these typefaces in Emigre magazine eventually lead to the creation of Emigre Fonts, one of the first independent type foundries utilizing personal computer technology for the design and distribution of fonts. They created the model for hundreds of small foundries who followed in their footsteps.

Emigre magazine was published a total of 69 times, usually irregularly, over the years between 1984 and 2005. One of the first publications to use Macintosh computers, Emigre influenced the move towards desktop publishing within the graphic design community. But that was not the end of its influence. Art directors Rudy Vanderlands and Zuzana Licko entranced designers, photographers and typographers alike with their use of use of experimental layouts and opinionated articles.

The focus of the magazine moved from culture to designers to design itself, with an increasing focus on the publication and promotion of varied articles on design by many different authors. The magazine also changed formats several times during its career switching from an oversized publication to a text-friendly reader and then to a multimedia format, from issue 60 to 65, which came with a CD or DVD.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Emigre No. 70
The Look Back Issue

Emigre was initially a magazine about actual émigrés. Very few people remember it that way, but the revolutionary design publication was founded by immigrants — including husband-and-wife duo Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko — in order to present “the unique perspective of contemporary poets, writers, journalists, graphic designers, photographers, architects, and artists who live or have lived outside their native countries.”

With an intended audience of so-called exiles, Emigre originally set out to be “the magazine that ignores boundaries” of a specifically geopolitical nature. Hence, the bold, passport-style thumbprint lurking past the threshold of the first cover. Notice, too, how émigré’s accents have stealthily migrated south, down into the letters themselves, where they resemble swinging doors. The first issue’s content focused on topics like moving to California and watching Sumo wrestling in Japan, but the typographic details foreshadowed Emigre’s further departures.

Emigre, Inc. is a digital type foundry based in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1984, coinciding with the birth of the Macintosh computer, the Emigre team, consisting of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, with the addition of Tim Starback in 1993, were among the early adaptors to the new digital technology.

From 1984 until 2005 Emigre published the infamous Emigre magazine, a quarterly publication devoted to visual communication. Emigre created some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs winning them both world-wide acclaim and much criticism. The exposure of these typefaces in Emigre magazine eventually lead to the creation of Emigre Fonts, one of the first independent type foundries utilizing personal computer technology for the design and distribution of fonts. They created the model for hundreds of small foundries who followed in their footsteps.

Matthew Carter

Bell Centennial N

1975-1978

This type, designed for AT&T phone books, is easily readable at very small sizes. The cut-away negatives where strokes meet contribute to the font's legibility and practicality by allowing inkspread during printing on newsprint phonebook pages. Carter's attention to detail and knowledge of printing processes resulted in a design that significantly reduceed the number of pages in a phonebook, saving AT&T a significant amount of money.

Carter’s Walker Type face

1995
Designed as the proprietary type face of the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, it is meant to have interchangeable parts, such as “snap-on” serifs” and inventive ligatures.

Matthew Carter

Verdana Typeface

1995?
Unlike most of the typefaces used on screens, which were designed for print and intended to be read on paper, Verdana was designed for use on the computer screen, created from the beginning to be easily readable at small sizes, with simple curves and large, open letterforms. Because the forms are so open, the counters (the negative spaces in the letters) do not fill in even when bolded, enhancing the legibility of the heavier version of the typeface. Moreover, the letterforms are spaced more widely than in a print font so they are legible even when displayed in computer applications that don't control spacing, and letterforms that look alike (such as i, I, and 1), are designed to be as dissimilar as possible. In addition, certain letters are spaced so that they never touch, regardless of combination (an f next to an i, for example), because at small sizes connecting letters can form illegible blobs.

Eames House

1949

The Eames helped usher in the great post-war expansion in consumption of well-designed materials for the home using technologies and materials developed for wartime purposes. Their designs were efficient, modular, colorful, and representative of the modernist program to employ design to remake contemporary American lifestyles.

Knoll Furniture was a primary player introducing the modern design aesthetic to the American public. Their influences were the Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus.



To set the scene: the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907, was born out of the confusion and concern regarding the place of the artist in the second half of the 19th Century. The Bauhaus came soon after. Meanwhile, Hans Knoll, born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914, is the second son of Walter Knoll, a successful second-generation furniture manufacturer. His grandfather, Wilhelm Knoll, founded the family business in 1865 and built a reputation for high-quality furniture. Walter and his brother, Wilhelm II, who followed the Werkbund movement closely, chose to redirect the business and create furniture for new modernist interiors. Hans would soon follow. Across the Atlantic, Florence Margaret Schust is born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1917.

1919 - 1933 The Bauhaus
Walter Gropius founds the Bauhaus School in Weimar, Germany. Gropius, an active member of the Deutscher Werkbund, conceives the Bauhaus as an institution dedicated to uniting the fields of art, design and industry in order to elevate the quality of mass production and advance social order in post-war Germany.



The Bauhaus’ influence on the world of architecture remains immense. One of its most famous members and its final director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, once said “the Bauhaus was not an institution with a clear program — it was an idea...The fact that it was an idea,” he believed, “is the cause of the enormous influence the Bauhaus had on every progressive school around the globe. You cannot do that with organization, you cannot do that with propaganda. Only an idea spreads so far...” This idea and the associated belief in the confluence of art and industry greatly affected Hans Knoll and likewise inspired him to help bring modernism, through furniture, to America.

The 1930s
Amid escalating unrest in Europe, a new era of design is born in and exported to the United States. Just before the Bauhaus closes, The Cranbrook Academy of Art is established in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and inspired experimentation continues there and elsewhere throughout the US. The decade ends with the foundation of Knoll in its earliest iteration – The Hans G. Knoll Furniture Company – a furniture exporter established in a small space on East 72nd Street.



Above: Harry Bertoia, future Knoll Collaborator, as instructor of the Academy of Art Metals Department. 1939. Cranbrook Academy Archives. 4879-9. Photograph: Richard G. Askew

Paula Scher

Swatch Advertisement

1984

Volkswagen Lemon
1960
The famous "Lemon" ad: Copy that seems at first glance like criticism actually praises the German carmaker for its high standards.

It is not lost on the design community that these ads for a German car maker reference contemporary Modernist trends in graphic design originating in Germany.

Doyle, Dane, Bernbach Advertising agency

You Don’t Have to be Jewish to Love Levy’s

1960s
Introduction of the “conceptual” advertisement through smart, ironic copywriting and iconic modernist design.

You Don’t Have to be Jewish to Love Levy’s
These ads explored breaking down the identity and racial stereotypes that persisted into the 1960s.