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, were among the early adaptors to the new technology.
From 1984 until 2005 Emigre published the infamous Emigre magazine, a quarterly publication devoted to visual communication. Emigre created some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs causing great consternation within the realm of graphic design. 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. Today, the Emigre Fonts Library consist of over 600 digital typefaces, both experimental and traditional in nature.
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. 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.
Complete sets of Emigre magazine are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Museum fur Gestaltung in Zurich, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, The Bancroft Library and many other institutions around the world. In 2011, five digital typefaces from the Emigre Type Library were acquired by MoMA New York for their design and architecture collection.
Some examples of different websites and their use of different typography styles to grab the attention of their readers: