Zuzana Licko

Zuzana Licko was born in 1961 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. Licko’s father was a biomathematician and at the University of California, San Francisco. Through his job, she became involved with computers during the summer months, helping him with data processing work. The first font she created was designed in the Greek alphabet for her father. Czechoslovakia and emigrated with her parents to the U.S. in 1968. She graduated with a degree in Graphic Communications from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. Together with her husband, Rudy VanderLans, Licko started the design company Emigre Graphics in 1984. The company became world renowned for its self-published magazine and type foundry which were greatly inspired by the new technical possibilities offered by the introduction of the Macintosh computer. Licko and VanderLans became early adopters to the new technology and they used the computer to experiment and created some of the very first typeface designs and digital page layouts causing great consternation within the realm of graphic design. Eventually, exposure of the typefaces in Emigre magazine resulted in demand for the fonts which lead to the creation of the Emigre Type foundry. This growing library of digital typefaces, both experimental and traditional, is currently the principle activity and mainstay of Emigre.

Licko and her husband Rudy VanderLans won the Chrysler Design Award in 1994. Apart from winning this award, their work on Émigré also won the Publish magazine Impact Award in 1996. A year later, they got an American Institute for Graphic Arts Gold Medal Award. Soon after, in 1998 they were awarded the Charles Nyples Award in Innovation in Typography.

The Society of Typographic Aficionados awarded Licko the 2013 SOTA Typography Award, citing her “intellectual, highly-structured approach to type design” and her contributions to the digital typography industry.

References

Emigre Fonts by Zuzana Licko, www.emigre.com/Designer/ZuzanaLicko.

Biography by Michael Dooley  September 1. “Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans.” AIGA, www.aiga.org/medalist-zuzanalickoandrudyvanderlans.

PeoplePill. “About Zuzana Licko: Slovak Graphic Designer (1961-): Biography, Facts, Career, Wiki, Life.” PeoplePill, peoplepill.com/people/zuzana-licko/.

“Quick Design History: Zuzana Licko #ThrowbackThursday.” Shillington Design Blog, 2 Apr. 2019, www.shillingtoneducation.com/blog/emigre-magazine-tbt/.

Botezatu, Teodora. “ZUZANA LICKO.” Medium, Medium, 30 Jan. 2018, medium.com/@botezatuteodora/zuzana-licko-fbc2d80d32c0.