Typophile - Emigre... Are you still using some of them? - Comments

Ha! Journal is hands down

bieler — Sat, 7 Jun 2008 00:43:31 -0700

Ha! Journal is hands down the best thing Emigre ever delivered. Emigre started out in the PostScript Type 3 years (the only free font format licensing around) and learned the lessons of optimizing for low-resolution output devices quite well. There are very few typefaces that actually look better at smaller size. Journal is one of them. If it looks slightly Czech, well, it is, can’t do any better than that. As Goudy said, those old guys stole all our best ideas (I paraphrase).

Gerald

I’m going to flip my take

James Puckett — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 13:28:11 -0700

I’m going to flip my take on this thread and list the Emigre types I would still love to use on a project:

Tribute: What a great book this can make.
Fairplex: This would be great for faux old-fashioned posters.
Matrix II: My next business card will be Matrix as a flip of the just-text-in-Univers design I use now. And I really want to use the ornaments somewhere.
Vista: This would be nice for my Earth-mother clients
Modula: On the cover of a fashion magazine
Priori: As a titling face

I made a book in Triplex

rs_donsata — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 12:01:41 -0700

I made a book in Triplex last year. I just felt the face served the purpose of an indigenous cookbook with it’s brusque yet elegant italic. Before this I have only seen Triplex used twice on flyers but I must say I live in Mexico and was 8 years old in 1990.

Héctor

Maybe I’m wrong, but IMHO

ilovecolors — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:58:33 -0700

Maybe I’m wrong, but IMHO Emigre fonts look a bit undecided, they don’t know if they want to be revolutionary or conservative, particulary, Mrs. Eaves. What was the aim of this project? a traditional font? a revolutionary font? it’s certainly not a font we needed, and it doesn’t have any special background like Baskerville did, an special and strong motivation that lead to the font that couldn’t have been done in any other way. Emigre is certainly special in the experimental field, although it’s weak for a functional type, as we see in the Black Hawk Down cover.
For a eighties based project it’s cool, but Emigre fonts are more like art, and I wouldn’t be using them for something functional.

It does seem like type has a

Eben Sorkin — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 10:41:07 -0700

It does seem like type has a cycle of excitement over novelty and distinctive voice and then a return to core values and around again as the core values start to feel too staid. But the cycle may be disrupted now. Or the cycles may be getting closer & closer so that you just have near simultaneous activity in several directions. This whole “decorative” cycle has lasted a remarkably long time! Simultanaity may have the effect of extending the life of all trends by ensuring that the point of over-exposure takes longer to get to. And yes, this is all just theoretical waffle just barely related to the topic.

Helvetica is probably more

pattyfab — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 07:35:43 -0700

Helvetica is probably more ubiquitous

Well... given it comes bundled into every operating system, then yes.

I meant the latter (and was

Chipman223 — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:18:01 -0700

I meant the latter (and was kidding, don’t worry), but I’d be very interested in reading your book, and hearing what it covers (or who else you’ve talked to) in the mean time. I won’t do any post hijacking though.

Chipman: “Can you get me a

David R — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:06:32 -0700

Chipman:

“Can you get me a signed specimen book?”

my book? with pleasure.

a specimen from emigre signed by Ms Licko? well, at least i can try :-)

Hey Zato, welcome back and

David R — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:02:15 -0700

Hey Zato, welcome back and congrats on your second post.

- For me, “top of the hype” means “trendy, successful”. sorry if it’s not the actual meaning, english is not my mothertongue. doin’ my best. looking back at the sentence, it was quite obvious, though.

- When something is overused, it pays the price of success: well, yes, it’s sad but true. when a talented artist makes something which totally fits its era and is overused, it gets so much associated with it that on the day the fashion changes, the work (in this case, a typeface) follows the path to oblivion and shame. You think i’m wrong? well, cooper black was “top of the hype” in 1968, and it was the synonym of cheap in 2000. brody was “top of the hype” in 1987, and you can hardly find one of his types in use today. 90% of aldo novarese’s types are unavailable on a digital format today, because nobody wants them; even though he was a great artist, his types were so much used in the sixties and seventies that they are now “paying the price”. it’s very sad, yes; it is as sad as admitting that it’s hard for me today to use typefaces i really, really loved, such as dogma or triplex, but it’s a fact.

- who can actually use these types today: that was a question, you know. I know i can not use these types anymore myself, not because they are not top of the hype, but because they have been once. so i was wondering if anyone else can, with success. and then I had interesting answers. and then, I had yours.

hope you understood me this time, if no i’ll explain again, no problem.

@Zato I think someone hit a

Chipman223 — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:01:23 -0700

@Zato

I think someone hit a nerve, but I don’t think David intended to be disdainful to Rudy, Zuzana &c. I’m a huge Emigre fanboy (proud owner of an Emigre tshirt-in Dogma no less), but that doesn’t mean we can’t offer some criticism. I prefer to think of Emigre’s types as fashionable. Imagine what the clothes from high-fashion designers from Paris, Milan and New York were making in the late 80s and early 90s. Emigre was kind of the place where typefaces were rethought, and the result was a lot of experimental type designs. Some were successful in the short run, some not at all, and some that I don’t think that I could work without. I’m actually starting to lean towards Mrs Eaves being sort of fad-y.

Hype has a negative connotation.
Sometimes, yes. Emigre was hyped and criticized. What David is saying is nothing new. I believe Massimo Vignelli and Paul Rand would truly have gotten a reaction out of you.

@ David
I am actually in regular contact with Ms Licko herself, and everything is fine.
Can you get me a signed specimen book? ;)

This is what you wrote:

Zato3 — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 23:18:49 -0700

This is what you wrote: Emigre... Are you still using some of them?

I was wondering about Emigre’s types. A few years ago they were top of the hype, so much overused that they are now paying the price of success; I can’t go through Emigre’s catalog without seeing “1990” written everywhere. I mean, apart from a few types (Malaga, Vista, Mrs Eaves, Tribute), who can actually still use today types such as Triplex, Matrix Script, Keedy, Dogma, Democratica, Dead History or Citizen?

“top of the hype” ....what exactly do you mean here? Hype has a negative connotation.
“so much overused that they are now paying the price of success”. Really? So if you do excellent creative work, and it becomes popular, you’ll “pay a price” later?

“I mean, apart from a few types (Malaga, Vista, Mrs Eaves, Tribute), who can actually still use today types such as...” Right, I see. No one should use these fonts-they’re just not the hype anymore.

bieler: I guess history

David R — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 23:02:55 -0700

bieler:

I guess history bites its own tail... New stuff will come along, but 80’s and 90’s big comeback is definitely on the way. that’s human nature.

I think Neville Brody agrees with me on this one :-)

“Being stuck in the 80s /

bieler — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 22:37:22 -0700

“Being stuck in the 80s / 90s is at least two decades ahead of where graphic design currently is, based on best selling fonts... “

Weird, ever consider looking forward? taking a peak at what just might be 21st century design/typography? No revolutionaries here? just reactionaries?

I guess this backward-looking thing is what they call turn-of-the-century “future shock.”

Gerald

Hey Zato, I am actually

David R — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 13:03:13 -0700

Hey Zato,

I am actually writing a book about typography, and in this book I wrote a full article about Zuzana Licko’s Mrs Eaves, and another one about Xavier Dupre’s Vista, in which I say a lot of nice things. I am actually in regular contact with Ms Licko herself, and everything is fine. I have been one of the biggest fans of Emigre since years, I have countless printed specimens, Emigre magazines, I receive their catalog and I actually have some of the typefaces licensed. I also wrote, and think, that it’s becoming increasingly hard to use most of these types today mostly because of their success in the nineties, which is not rude or bad or whatever, but simply true. Read again, mate, because that is really what I said, asking the fellow typophiles around their point of view, which is sometimes the same, sometimes very different. I, for example, agree totally with Tiffany when she says that Emigre proudly stands by their old designs, and I didn’t think of it that way before; I came to this different point of view through discussing with the clever people around.

Now, this being said, you subscribed here 8 weeks ago, and you posted only one messsage - this one. Do *you* actually have any interesting critic to formulate?

Cheers,
dr

There are quite a few

Miss Tiffany — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 10:54:20 -0700

There are quite a few foundries who are scrambling to reinvent their catalogues monthly to keep it current. I think Emigre has done a great job of that. They don’t seem to discount their past work and proudly list it next to the new stuff. People thought Helvetica was dead and it came back with a feature film. Sure, Helvetica is probably more ubiquitous, but that isn’t to say that Emigre’s faces don’t still hold a spot in our current libraries.

Emigre... Are you still using some of them?

David R — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 04:46:04 -0700