Emigre Compilation Revisits ‘Punk’ Era of Graphic Design
- By Hugh Hart
A woman took the stage of a Seattle design conference in 1995 and smashed a computer to smithereens with a sledgehammer. Passions were raging full-boil during the so-called legibility wars, as tradition-based graphic designers — in love with clean, simple advertising and magazine layouts — looked with horror at a new generation of font designers and illustrators who used computer programs as a tool for shredding, shattering, melting and otherwise rethinking the way words and pictures came together to sell a message.
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Émigré No. 70: The Look Back Issue hits bookstores Saturday. Weighing in at nearly 6 pounds, the 512-page volume costs $50 and comes bundled with a booklet of fiery letters to the editors, a CD-ROM with music and videos published by Émigré and a commemorative poster.
The book, edited by Émigré co-founder and designer Rudy VanderLans and published by Gingko Press, features all the eye-popping magazine covers (including those pictured above and below), plus essays and interviews from The Designers Republic, Allen Hori, Rick Valicenti, Vaughan Oliver, Mr. Keedy, Lorraine Wild and others.
VanderLans likens the late 20th century’s computer-inspired design movement to “punk music in the ’70s and ’80s.”
“Punk was a direct reaction to glam/stadium rock (Bowie/Roxie Music, etc.),” he told Wired.com in an e-mail interview. “Did it change music? Not really. Glam rock is still being made. But punk added something to the mix. It expanded our idea of what music was, and how it could be recorded, performed and distributed. I think that’s the legacy of design of the ’90s. We reacted to an institutionalized Modernism that had gone stale.”
VanderLans talks about DIY design, the punk-rock aesthetic and the game-changing Apple Macintosh in the interview below.
read the rest of the interview at Emigre Compilation Revisits ‘Punk’ Era of Graphic Design | Underwire | Wired.com:
