Founded in 1984 by Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, Emigre was one of the first independent publishers and type foundries to explore the new design possibilities offered by the Macintosh computer. Many people first encountered the foundry’s typefaces in the innovative pages of Emigre magazine (1984–2005). But Emigre also issued small booklets to promote the virtues of their fonts and reveal the processes used to design them. More than simple sales tools, these collectible type specimens were enjoyed as much for their inventive contents as for their leading-edge typeface designs.
Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens, 1986–2024, reproduces forty of these booklets in a single massive reference. With a preface from Letterform Archive associate curator Stephen Coles, a foreword from type design collaborator Jeffery Keedy, and a section of never-before-published behind-the-scenes content, this volume provides a near-definitive anthology of the foundry’s remarkable story in print.