Press Room
Letterform Archive Announces New Book Release: Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens, 1986–2024
Media Contact
Katie Peeler, [email protected], +1.415.223.2823
SAN FRANCISCO, California, April 17, 2024 — Letterform Archive Books is excited to announce the release of Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens, 1986–2024, an expansive, 1,264- page compendium that celebrates the groundbreaking work of the digital type foundry, Emigre. Founded in 1984 by Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, Emigre was one of the first independent publishers and type foundries to harness the creative potential of the Macintosh computer in the early days of digital design and typography.
This new title from Letterform Archive Books reproduces forty of Emigre’s original type specimens from 1986 through 2024 and offers readers a look at the innovative work that defined an era of graphics. Originally issued as collectible booklets, these type specimens were celebrated for their cutting-edge typefaces and inventive contents, serving as both marketing materials and artistic statements.
Nearly doubling the content of the celebrated first edition of Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens from 2016, the new edition expands to over 1,200 pages and includes both classic and new specimens. The book includes fresh insights in a new introduction from VanderLans as well as a selection of additional never-before-published materials, including photographs, sketches, and hand-written correspondence, providing a comprehensive reference that documents the output of one of the most influential type foundries in history.
The book features a preface by Letterform Archive associate curator Stephen Coles and a foreword by Emigre collaborator Jeffery Keedy.
“These process materials have had a place of honor in our stacks since 2016, when VanderLans and Licko donated their work to Letterform Archive,” said Stephen Coles, associate curator at Letterform Archive. “ We’ve always been proud to share these materials with researchers, and now we’re equally proud that Emigre fans can take a part of the Archive home in the form of this vibrant and comprehensive desk reference.”
Emigre Fonts: Type Specimens, 1986–2024 is available now at letterformarchive.org/shop/ emigre-fonts.
Hardcover $75 | 5.25 × 8.25 inches | 1264 pp | ISBN: 9798989142361
About Letterform Archive
Founded in 2015, Letterform Archive is a non-profit center for preserving and sharing the history of the graphic arts. Letterform Archive Books produces exquisite titles based on its collection of more than 100,000 artifacts, as well as bold new books on design, type, and lettering. Distributed worldwide by D.A.P. (Distributed Arts Publishers), the Archive’s publications include Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest, Bauhaus Typography at 100, Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911, The Complete Commercial Artist: Making Modern Design in Japan, 1928–1930, Citizen Printer: Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., and NKF: Piet Zwart’s Avant-Garde Catalog for Standard Cables, 1927–1928.