EMIGRE 24
Neomania
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko: EMIGRE 24 [Neomania]. Berkeley, CA: Emigre, 1992. Original edition [6,500 copies]. Slim quarto. Thick saddle stitched wrappers. [40] pp. Multiple paper stocks. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Lightly handled, but a nearly fine copy of this journal whose size and contents inevitably invited abuse.
11.25 x 16.75 saddle stitched magazine exploring the nature of heritage in contemporary Graphic Design, circa 1992. Printed at Cal Central, Sacramento, CA. Publisher and art director: Rudy VanderLans. Digital type design and typesetting: Zuzana Licko.
Contents
- Mail (including Frank Heine)
- Rudy VanderLans, Second Wind (introduction)
- Rudy VanderLans, 11 Questions I've Always Wanted to Ask David Carson
- Rudy VanderLans, interview with Neil Feineman, Editor of Ray Gun. “I could relate to the extreme egocentricity of the traditional surf world, which I felt was the fatal flaw in the beach life style, because it reflected an almost colonial mentality.”
- Anne Burdick, Neomania (16 pp. insert, text, photographs and design: Burdick) “Neomania: a madness for perpetual novelty where ‘the new’ has become defined strictly as a ‘purchased value,’ —something to buy.”—Roland Barthes
- Rudy VanderLans, interview with Marvin Jarrett, Publisher/Editor of Ray Gun
Soon after David Carson qualified as the 9th best surfer in the world, Steve and Debbee Pezman, publishers of Surfer magazine tapped Carson to design a new quarterly publication called Beach Culture. Though only six quarterly issues were produced, the tabloid-size venue -- edited by author Neil Feineman -- allowed Carson to make his first significant impact on the world of graphic design and typography -- with ideas that were called innovative even by those that were not fond of his work, in which legibility often relied on readers' strict attention (for one feature on a blind surfer, Carson opened with a two-page spread covered in black).
Soon after Beach Culture folded, Carson was hired by publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett to design Ray Gun, a magazine of supposed international standards focusing on music and lifestyle. Not afraid to break convention, in one issue he used Dingbat as the font for what he considered a rather dull interview with Bryan Ferry. Ouch. Since he left Ray Gun, Carson has won every design award in the known universe and been elected the President of Kansas.
From Emigre's website: “Emigre, Inc. is a digital type foundry based in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1984, coinciding with the birth of the Macintosh computer, the Emigre team, consisting of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, with the addition of Tim Starback in 1993, were among the early adaptors to the new digital technology.
“From 1984 until 2005 Emigre published the legendary Emigre magazine, a quarterly publication devoted to visual communication. Emigre created some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs winning them both world-wide acclaim and much criticism. The exposure of these typefaces in Emigre magazine eventually lead to the creation of Emigre Fonts, one of the first independent type foundries utilizing personal computer technology for the design and distribution of fonts. They created the model for hundreds of small foundries who followed in their footsteps.
“As a team, Emigre has been honored with numerous awards including the 1994 Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, and the 1998 Charles Nypels Award for excellence in the field of typography. In 1993 they were selected as a leading design innovator in the First Annual I.D. Forty. Emigre is also a recipient of the 1997 American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal Award, its highest honors. In October 2010 the Emigre team was inducted as Honorary members of the Society of Typographic Arts, Chicago, and in 2013 Licko received the prestigious Annual Typography Award from the Society of Typographic Aficionados. Most recently Emigre received the 29th New York Type Directors Club Medal. Watch the video tribute shown at the presentation of the TDC Medal in the Rose Auditorium at The Cooper Union in New York City in July 2016.
“Complete sets of Emigre magazine are in the permanent collections of: The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Design Museum in London, The Denver Art Museum, The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, The Museum fur Gestaltung in Zurich; and in 2011, five digital typefaces from the Emigre Type Library were acquired by MoMA New York for their permanent design and architecture collection.“