The Woman Who Dotted Your "I"

ZUZANA

LICKO

THE WOMAN WHO DOTTED YOUR

Z

uzana Licko was the first type designer to put down the first dots, first bytes that is, and take advantage of the potential of digital typefaces.

The advances in type and technology parallel each other. The era of American decorative type came form the abundance of wood as a resource to create type out of. Unlike stone or metal the wood allowed intricate carvings which gave birth to a whole new style of type. Just how typographers work evolved based on the technology of their time, Zuzana was a modern pioneer. When the Macintosh computer came out someone was going to have to make the conversion for our letters to be reproduced on this new format. Licko was the typographer that exploited these pixel possibilities.

DIGITAL Licko was born in Czechoslovakia but at age seven moved to San Francisco CA when the Russians invaded. Licko’s father was a mathematician at the University of California San Francisco and through his job she became involved with computer data processing work. However, at school herself, Licko studied architecture at Berkley, but changed believing that it was too much like studying business and took graphic communications instead. In an interview with Licko she describes her success based on two things; “ There were two important events in my career; meeting Rudy VanderLans, and meeting the Macintosh computer.

DESIGN “There were two important events in my career; meeting Rudy VanderLans, and meeting the Machintosh computer”

The Macintosh was unveiled at the time I graduated. It was relatively a crude tool back then, so established designers looked upon it as a cute novelty. But to me it seemed as wondrously uncharted as my fledging design career. It was a fortunate coincidence; I’m sure that being free of preconceived notions regarding typeface design helped me in exploring this new medium to the fullest. “ At Berkley Licko met her husband Rudy VanderLans and together, as a graphic design power couple, they would produce the well-known and respected Émigré magazine for many years. Rudy was a graduate student in photography when they met in 1982. After graduation they both did odd design related jobs but has no real direction until the Macintosh computer was introduced. “We bought one, and everything started to fall into place.

We both, in our own way, really enjoyed this machine, It forced us to question everything we had learned about design”. VanderLans worked on the layout while Licko worked on the typeface. Rather then replicate (on a dox matrix printer) typographic forms already adapted from calligraphy, lead, and phototypesetting, Licko used public domain software to create bitmap fonts with a whole new design.

“When I started building Macintosh bitmap fonts in the 1984, it was a purely experimental endeavor. It was Émigré magazine that opened up these options. Issue 3 was the turning point for my typeface experiments and for the magazine, as it was typeset entirely using my first low-res fonts. We had a lot of inquires about the availability of these typefaces that no one had seen before. It was the start of Émigré Fonts.”

Born in Czechoslovakia

Worked on computer data with father

Started Emigre Fonts

Married Rudy VanderLans

Attended University

E

Won AIGA Gold Award

Started Emigre Magazine

of California Berkley

migre magazine was known for challenging the ideas of legibility and layout and reflected the evolution of technology though its issues. The Émigré aesthetic was controversial on the American design scene, since it contradicted Modernists such as Massimo and Vignelli who referred to the new typography as ‘garbage’. This however did not keep the Émigré fonts from becoming very popular. “For a while I was a typesetter, “ says Licko. “Many designers who wanted to use my typefaces did not have a Macintosh, so I was selling typesetting with my fonts.

As it turned out, the magazine provided me with a reason to continue developing these fonts, as well as a means to promote them. In turn, these unusual type designs contributed to the magazine’s unique character, while providing an efficient way of typesetting. Using the Macintosh not only cut the costs but added a level of design control that otherwise would have been mediated though an outside typesetting service.”

Licko’s typefaces paralleled that of technology and émigré magazine’s content. In 1986 she created Citizen which worked

with the new bitmap printing of the new laser printers. Base-9 and Base12 originated as a screen fonts for Emigre’s website in 1995, and then evolved to a printer font as well. The Hypnopeadia patters Licko designed was created from the lack of copyright for typefaces. In an attempt to bring across the message that a letter is not just an alphabetic character, but an ornamental design that represents an alphabetic character, Licko rotated the letter form to create another shape.

“By rotating the

letters designs, taking them out of the context and turning them into textures, the “Hypnopaedia patterns allow us to make this distinction and appreciate letter shapes on another level, abstracted from their functions as alphabetic characters. “ explains Licko. As Émigré started

publishing more about design theory, Licko’s work started to reflect that. She designed the Mrs. Eaves and Filosofia, which were based on Baskerville and Bodini.

Mrs. Eaves was in fact in respect to Bodini’s wife, Sarah Eaves, who finished printing the volumes he left incomplete after his death. Émigré fonts became more then a cult phenomenon. By the late 1980’s the New York Times, ABC, and Nike were using Émigré fonts. Today

Licko and VanderLans work has been recognized by the Chrysler Award in 1994, the AIGA gold medal in 1997, and the Charles Nyples Award for Innovation in Typography in 1998.