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 popular Mrs Eaves, Modula, Filosofia, and Matrix. In 1997, Licko was awarded the AIGA Medal for her contributions to American graphic design.
As a corresponding interest she also creates ceramic sculptures and jacquard weavings.
Early life Licko was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia and came to the United States with her family aged 7. She studied architecture, photography, and computer programming before earning a degree in graphic communications at the University of California at Berkeley.Rubenstein, Rhonda. "Zuzana Licko." Eye magazine No. 43, Vol. 11, Spring 2002
Licko was introduced to computers by her father, a biomathematician at the University of California, San Francisco. 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.Sherin, Aaris. "Emigre Inc.." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 7 Oct. 2016. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2021626 .
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:
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 in his layouts with 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.
Emigre magazine prominently featured Licko's fonts, some of which were initially created for use in the publication. The magazine is an unintentional archive of Licko's work and progression as a type designer. From her pixelated fonts optimized for bitmap printing to her sophisticated vector designs, Licko's technique advanced with technology.The Font Feed.Stephen Coles, September 29, 2005. http://fontfeed.com/archives/an-interview-with-zuzana-licko/ In Emigre: Graphic Design into the Digital Realm, Licko discusses her necessary departure from classic type forms in her early 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 (based on Baskerville) and Filosofia (based on Bodoni). 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 a 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 as Lo-Res, 2001 Modula, 1985 Citizen, 1986 Matrix (typeface), 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 (typeface), 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, based on the 18th century designs of John Baskerville 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, 2010 Program, 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, 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.
The Society of Typographic Aficionados awarded Licko the 2013 SOTA Typography Award, citing her "intellectual, highly-structured approach to type design" and her contributions to the digital typography industry. MacUser Desktop Publisher of the Year Award, 1986 Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, 1994 Publish Magazine Impact Awards, 1996 American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal, 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 Gallery, Norfolk, Virginia, 2005 “Emigre at Gallery 16,” Gallery 16, San Francisco, 2010 “Emigre magazine: design, discourse and authorship,” University of Reading, UK, 2017
General exhibitions “Pacific Wave: California Graphic Design,” Museo Fortuny, Venice, Italy, 1987 “Graphic Design in America,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1989 “Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture,” Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, 1996 “Designer as Author, Voices and Visions,” Northern Kentucky University, 1996 “Design Culture Now: National Design Triennial,” Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, 2000 “East Coast/West Coast” at Centre du Graphisme, Echirolles, France, 2002 "D-Day:le design aujourd'hui," at Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2005 “Digitally Mastered,” MoMA, New York, 2007 “Quick, Quick, Slow,” Experimentadesign Lisboa 2009, Berardo Collection Museum, 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, Minneapolis, 2011 (featured "Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue" and Base 900) “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990,” Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2011 "Standard Deviations," MoMA, New York, 2011 (featured 23 digital typefaces for their permanent collection, including five Emigre font families: Jeffery Keedy's Keedy Sans, Jonathan Barnbrook's Mason Serif, Barry Deck's Template Gothic, Zuzana Licko's Oakland—renamed Lo-Res in 2001—and P. Scott Makela's Dead History) “Work from California,” 25th International Biennial of Graphic Design, Brno, Czech Republic, 2012 “Revolution/Evolution,” College for Creative Studies, Detroit, 2014 “Typeface to Interface,” Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2016 “California Graphic Design, 1975–95,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 2018 “Between the Lines: Typography in LACMA’s Collection,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 2019
Permanent collections Denver Art Museum holds a complete set of Emigre magazine in their permanent collection. Design Museum in London holds a complete set of Emigre magazine in their permanent collection. Letterform Archive holds the Emigre Archives in their permanent collection. Museum für Gestaltung (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 Filosofia Mrs Eaves Pirouette: Turning Points in Design
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), Interview with Rudy VanderLans 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