NEWNEWS: MyFonts.com welcomes Emigre!

Emigre’s history goes way back to 1984, almost the pre-history of digital fonts. Rudy VanderLans was putting together the first edition of Emigre magazine, then an art journal concerned with photography, architecture, and poetry. To replace the magazine’s photocopied typewriter type, his partner Zuzana Licko started to design fonts. This was back in the days of the first Macintosh computers when low memory, low speed, and an absence of Fontographer meant that computer fonts were bitmap fonts: the Emigre look proudly proclaimed its computer origins.

Emigre as a type foundry started when readers requested the fonts the magazine was using. (Amazingly, those early fonts - now remastered as the Lo Res collection - still sell well today for designers intent on controlling every pixel in their Flash designs, as well as those pining for the days when ‘technology’ and ‘aesthetic compromise’ were inseparable.)

Over the years the magazine became graphically much more ambitious, and more centred on graphic design. By turns admired and attacked, its many awards pay tribute to its influence.

Although Emigre’s fonts long ago branched away from low-tech bitmaps, many of their designs still betray that fascination of putting simple geometric shapes to work in new contexts, conceiving new ways to build letters. Template Gothic became one of the most popular fonts of the 1990s. Jonathan Barnbrook's mystical alphabets Mason and Exocet turned out to be irresistible: never before had spirituality been captured typographically. Particularly with their Script and Italic additions, Matrix and Triplex became type families that graphic designers simply had to own. Famous designers have produced some of their very best work as Emigre designs: Barnbrook’s designs already mentioned; John Downer's Vendetta, Triplex Italic, Brothers; Miles Newlyn's Missionary, Democratica, Sabbath Black; and P. Scott Makela's Dead History.

In recent years, Vendetta, Mrs Eaves and Filosofia show that Emigre can produce text fonts that stand confidently alongside the best that the larger foundries have to offer. Supplemented generously with small caps, old-style figures, ligatures and alternate characters, these fonts are ready to tackle tough design briefs with panache!

Most single fonts are $39, with good deals on larger packages.

The main Emigre page is here:
- http://www.myfonts.com/foundry/emigre/

All Emigre fonts are listed here:
- http://www.myfonts.com/browse/foundry/emigre/

This article refers to: News.

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