RUDY VANDERLANS EMIGRE INC. INFLUENCE SIGNIFICANCE
Brian Eno’s quip about the Velvet Underground - that only a Emigre is the only truly progressive and pluralistic graphic design “IN GRAPHIC DESIGN, THE IDEA IS THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. THAT WASN’T ALWAYS THE few thousand people bought their record but every one of them magazine that is a locus for a decentralized discourse on design. It CASE. AND I THINK WITH EMIGRE, BY SHOWING WORK THAT WENT AGAINST THE GRAIN, went on to form a band - could apply as well to Emigre. Although is an international meeting place for people interested in exploring BY DISCUSSING THE ISSUES, AND BY EXPERIMENTING, WE GAVE LICENSE TO DESIGNERS - and expanding the borders of design practice and theory. The only TO EXPLORE ALTERNATIVE POSSIBILITIES, AND TO MAKE WORK THAT RESONATED WITH tion peaked at 7,000 several years ago, its reverberations are still prerequisite is an interest in new design and an open mind. Intoler- THEIR INTENDED AUDIENCES, AS OPPOSED TO MAKING WORK TO APPEASE THE LOWEST being felt around the world. The magazine that VanderLans pub- ance for different ideas is the biggest obstacle in these proscribed and COMMON DENOMINATOR. THIS IDEA OF PLURALITY IS SOMETHING THAT WE NOW TAKE lished and art directed, and the fonts Licko developed for it, have dogmatic times. With the mind-numbingly dull 1970s and 80s behind FOR GRANTED. BUT IT WASN’T SO EASY TO BREAK OUT OF THE CHOKEHOLD OF THE SWISS stimulated designers to defy, and even overthrow, entrenched us, designers are waking up and starting the next millennium. Emigre INTERNATIONAL STYLE.” rules and to set new standards. is documenting where graphic design is going. And it’s going to be RDVDL interesting.