Emigre magazine
Emigre magazine Vs. Octavo (1984-2004)
In this lecture we were looking at the emigre magazine, Ruby Vanderlands was a Dutch founder, editor and designer along with Zuzanne Licko a Czech founder and typeface designer they were both interested in the idea of being in-between cultures. They complicated the question of modernism and postmodernism, which emerged in relation to another magazine called octavo. Both were different octavo siding with modernism and emigre siding with postmodernism.
Emigre...
Emigre were a magazine that tried to do something different in relation to type, it was a type based graphic magazine about the in between culture, leaning to postmodernism. The idea of in-between was of liminality. They named it emigre because the emigre experience is about being dislocated in a culture.
Emigre started when the technological revolution came and they were trying to expose the emergence of the apple mac. They focused on font production and employed a lot of their own fonts in the magazine. Initially they started working with bitmap fonts, they didn't have the same resolutions that we have now so it was bit mapped fonts making the text looks technological. Zuzzana was doing all typefaces on a mac, they had a big influence because they built their ethos into the fonts they used, and they were being spread around the design industry.
Emigre magazine was distinctive; it went through lots of forms. it began as broadsheet but through the issues continues to get smaller and eventually ends as a paper backs about the argumentation rather than graphic work, they talked about political issues but in a disguised way.
The critics for example Massimo Vignelli described the magazine as 'a national calamity' and 'an aberration of culture'. Emigre had really provocative arguments about the role of type in culture; as a consequence there is a strong debate, causing critical engagement.
David Carson was on side with them and makes it an 'emerge style' and says its too recognisable.
He says that as a postmodern designer it will be un-usable and that we shouldn’t pay attention.
David Carson was someone who built his career in Émigré’s postmodern ideas, but then goes against it and rejects it.
On the other hand Stephen Heller is the middle ground, he's a design journalist and had massive output in the design industry. He says its 'a blip in the continuum', coming from a modernist perspective he describes their work as celebrating the 'cult of the ugly'.
Emigre magazine came out with many outputs other than the magazine itself, they had allegiances with other designers and record companies for example the cover of Vaughn Oliver (4AD). The covers looked like emigre layouts and they devoted an issue of the magazine totally to Vaughn Oliver, contextualising his work. They were known for having a diverse evolving style in other words the in house style was hard to pin down though all the issues. They had a set of tendencies that are manifested in different ways. For example the use of organic type forms which were decorative and technological, all trying to make a reference to ornate type, going back to the illuminated book. They often collaborated with different designers and groups for example (designers republic, David Carson, experimental jet set)
Emigre was tuning into a combination of a aesthetic and expressive artistic design they had to get involved with the forms they were producing but also playful and experimental in how they are constructed. They played out political debate while focusing on design issues; everything they talk about is type and composition. They had heated debates about formal type, influenced by the idea that technology effects page design for example the apple mac bringing a social shift, and art culture and mass communication are changing.
They pushed against corporate qualities of modernism, the relaxation of grids, provocative clutter and visual forms of anarchy they didn’t just procure graphic work also writing.
The magazine included writing as well as design they tried to hold a debate on every level. The text is also as provocative as the imagery, it’s a rant with visual elements, not a balanced argument.
They were trying to ironically draw attention to the fact it’s not an expression of anything it compares old and new modernism, trying to give an analysis between them both.
It was called modernism 8.0, a relevance to software visioning and a series of trends that start to emerge. In modernism 8.0 is the return to modernism; it slightly subverts each of the modernism categories in a humorous way, from bitmap to vector. The form was always provided by software and it was perceived as a lack of craftsmanship.
Neo modernists designer are afraid of modernism, rather than thinking simplicity being best they think its more popular and a more commerciality lead practice.
Emigre was famous for its letters to the editor it created engagement with audience and magazine. The letters page was published in book form. In time it became a magazine about itself, over time it gets smaller, eventually it dissolves and ceases publication.it had a series of different formats, like audio cd versions, in its period it was an experimental thing to do. Also published in DVD format, and music publishing. When they finished it felt like there is nothing left to say, they think it influenced graphic design in a major way.
Its interesting in relation to the Helvetica debate, the only people that wouldn’t talk when Gary Husswitt was making his film were the guys at emigre they declined to be interviewed, the reason for that was because they lean towards post modernism.
We position it stylistically penetrating design culture but also the design community it’s the idea of expanded design and practice. Emigre is a product of the apple mac and the apple mac meets a dislocated team of designers and results in complex expressionism.
Zuzzane Licko
This type of tech dislocation associated with emigre was driving their experimentation with new modes of communication like pure design authorship. The form of the font is also expressive of the message it portraying, one of the biggest riffs.
He endlessly experimented with historical fonts, playing around, endlessly producing new riffs on a font, describes it in a way that resonates with Gills idea of naming fonts after human beings because john Baskerville (Baskerville font) got the idea from him.
Influence on emigre came from a number of things; the Cranbrook academy of arts (collaborations) was where design criticism originates. They were famous for the deconstructive approach to design and drawing attention to the work that text was doing within textual documents. The intent was that when read, you encounter constructions. One collaboration in an addition to this was with the tutors at Cranbrook to name a few Ed fella, a graduate at cranbrrok and Lorraine wild, together they formed the Cal Arts. All three becoming the form of postmodern design.
Andrew Blauvelt is famous for producing a font that can be used to brand any exhibition in the gallery he made a san-serif structure but with clip on serifs, a design addition can be introduced allowing you to accommodate the ethos of any exhibition by having a playful design intervention.
He doesn’t make a straight separation between modernist and postmodernist, he fussed them
Octavo...
Octavo was a magazine for typographer and designers with modernist tendencies. It was amore subversive form of modernism that was appearing on the radar. It has a similar agenda of emigre using type as image but it would bring out the idea of craft running through modernism and the embrace of new materials. It was distinctive in the layout of designs for the magazine; they were the hand crafted elements. in process of printing it has machine based aesthetic and had influence on the record industry. They were also heavily gridded and would play with reminiscent with Swiss grid design.
