Featuring: ayurvedait's all about you ignite| winter 2010 | design | health | music intro winterContents 2010 Design Eatery 04 Interview with Zuzanna Licko 18 Cafe Vancouver: Prado 09 Prepping for an Interview 22 David’s Tea Things Music 10 Objectified 24 Listen Up: Rihanna 25 Recent Albums Health 13 Weekend Detox 14 Ayurveda: It’s All About You 17 What’s Your Dosha? 22 24 13 10 03 design be: “Question the obvious.” RR: And what typeface would it be set in? ZL: That would depend on the context, of course. But for general print reproduction I would pick the last one I’ve finished, as I’m still trying to get better acquainted with the most recent designs. design (1) RR: What is your greatest accomplishment? ZL: That I was able to design functional and desirable typefaces without mastering calligraphy, which I was taught was impossible. RR: Your greatest regret? ZL: Sometimes I wish my career was more involved with disciplines that generate tangible items, like designing textiles, clothing, or shoes. I find it difficult to find good-looking shoes that are comfortable. I often pick up a comfortable shoe and think, Zuzana if they had just done this or that differently, I’d wear it. RR: After becoming well known for designing radical fonts, you became interested in more traditional ones. Why? ZL: My interest in reviving the classics (which began in 1995) was sparked by two factors: Licko the sophistication of personal computer technology, and Emigre magazine’s shift towards theory and the subsequent need for text faces an interview As one of the first type designers to exploit the potential of the Modernists such as Massimo Vignelli, who referred to the new typography to set large bodies of text. Each Apple Macintosh in its pre-designer days, Zuzana Licko transformed as “garbage.” The debate did little to slow the popularisation of the design gives me the opportunity with a type the pixel from low-resolution imitation to high-style original. Her early Emigre fonts, which by the late 1980s had moved beyond alternative to study details of classic faces that designer Emigre fonts not only revolutionised digital typography but also opened pop cult status into the mainstream (The New York Times, ABC and I’d never fully appreciate or notice up the market for the smaller foundries whose quarter-page ads populate Nike). The graphic design establishment has since recognised Licko and through casual observation or today’s design magazines. She has designed more than two dozen typeface VanderLans with a 1994 Chrysler Award, the 1997 AIGA gold medal and usage. For example, working on my families and oversees the Emigre foundry, which currently offers 300 or the 1998 Charles Nypels Award for Innovation in Typography. Bodoni revival, Filosofia, allowed so typefaces by the likes of Barry Deck, Jonathan Barnbrook, Frank Heine Licko’s intellectual approach to type creation continued to find me to better understand this long- and Rodrigo Cavazos. inspiration in the production qualities of technology. In 1986 she time classic. This kind of scrutiny, Born in Czechoslovakia, Licko (pronounced Litchko) emigrated to the created Citizen, which approximated the smoother bitmap printing of in turn, has given me ideas for faces US with her family as a schoolgirl. She studied architecture, photography the new laser printers. Base-9 and Base-12 originated as screen fonts for that are not strict revivals, such as and computer programming before taking a degree in graphic Emigre’s website in 1995, and then evolved with a companion printer Tarzana and Solex. communications at the University of California at Berkeley. When Rudy “ Sometimes I font. As Emigre began publishing more design theory, Licko developed VanderLans, her partner, launched Emigre, she began to contribute fonts more “classical” fonts; her designs Mrs Eaves and Filosofia were based RR: How do you judge good to the fledgling ‘magazine that ignores boundaries.’ Rather than replicate wish my life was respectively on Baskerville and Bodoni. And with issue 60, Emigre’s typeface design? (on a dot matrix printer) typographic forms already adapted from latest music-oriented incarnation, Licko and VanderLans have found ZL: It depends on the intended calligraphy, lead and photosetting, Licko used public domain software more involved yet another format in which the publication can continue to be a testing usage, and what criteria you define to create bitmap fonts. Emperor, Emigre and Oakland appeared in the ground and type specimen for Emigre typefaces. as being important: longevity magazine and were soon advertised for sale when VanderLans and Licko with disciplines Rhonda Rubinstein spoke to Zuzana Licko about this apparently ideal of usage, intensity of usage, co-founded the Emigre foundry. setup for a type designer and questioned the courteous but curiously influence on other designers, etc. Emigre’s development reflected the evolution of digital technology that generate reticent designer on a variety of other type matters, all (via email) in 9pt It takes the perspective of time to while questioning conventional ideas of legibility and layout. Licko’s Monaco. determine which typefaces remain highly structured typefaces counterbalanced VanderLans’ organic tangible items classics, which become icons, and compositions. The “Emigre aesthetic” lay at the heart of a once- . Rhonda Rubinstein: Do you have a maxim? which fade away. Moreover, these controversial battle on the American design scene, pitting them against > Zuzana Licko: I’ve never thought about having a maxim . it might perceptions also change, and it > 04 | ignite ” 05 design is the constant changing of these perceptions that drives our desire for RR: What have been the most ZL: I think Mrs Eaves was a mix of just enough tradition with an new typeface solutions. In addition, new technologies and environments shocking or delightful uses of your updated twist. It’s familiar enough to be friendly, yet different enough to present new problems for the designer to address. The most successful typefaces? be interesting. Due to its relatively wide proportions, as compared with experimental typeface designs are often those that address the possibilities ZL: Billboard use can be the original Baskerville, it’s useful for giving presence to small amounts or limitations of a yet uncharted technology. shocking because you have so little of text such as poetry, or for elegant headlines and for use in print ads. It But we live and make decisions in the moment without the benefit of a time to react as you’re driving makes the reader slow down a bit and contemplate the message. time-lapse perspective. You must have opinions on typeface designs, and by (Was that Base 9 I just saw?). criteria for determining whether you want to pursue a particular design. I often cringe when these huge RR: How did you come to work with VanderLans? For me it’s like the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: “I know letters are tracked so tightly that ZL: We met at the University of California at Berkeley where I was an it when I see it.” I don’t have a preconceived idea about what constitutes their counters can’t breathe - as undergraduate at the College of Environmental Design and Rudy was a a good typeface design. It can be a font created by LettError’s random tends to be the case on billboards. graduate student in photography. This was in 1982-83. After college we technology, an old classic such as Bodoni, or a new classic such as Matthew This is particularly problematic both did all sorts of design-related odd jobs. There was no direction. Carter’s Verdana. It has to contain some originality, something that with typefaces such as Base 9 and Then, in 1984 the Macintosh was introduced, we bought one, and makes you think, “Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that,” but originality in Citizen that need more breathing everything started to fall into place. We both, each in our own way, really itself is not enough. space than narrower ones. It makes enjoyed this machine. It forced us to question everything we had learnt me wonder how such billboard about design. We both enjoyed that process of exploration, of how far you RR: Your father, a biomathematician who enabled your early designs come about. Perhaps it’s could push the limits. Rudy is more intuitive; I’m more methodical. Yin computer access, was your first client, with the commission of a Greek premeditated: if the goal is to grab and yang. It seemed to click, and still does. alphabet for his personal use. What other people, events and/or things attention, then a jarring use of have influenced you most? type will be more effective than a RR: How do you deal with the challenges of working with your partner ZL: There were at least two important events: meeting Rudy harmonious treatment. when the tradition of design partnerships often means that the woman VanderLans, and meeting the Macintosh computer. The Macintosh was Oddly, some of the most gets less recognition? unveiled at the time I graduated. It was a relatively crude tool back then, pleasing uses have been those that I ZL: Rudy and I are both very detail-oriented and hands-on. This so established designers looked upon it as a cute novelty. But to me it didn’t recognise right away to be my makes it difficult for us to work together. I’m not a great collaborator and seemed as wondrously uncharted as my fledgling design career. It was a typefaces. This sometimes happens neither is he. It’s one reason why I switched my studies from architecture fortunate coincidence; I’m sure that being free of preconceived notions in books where the typography and to graphics.