When the giant thoughtscreen came crashing down in Apple Computer's "1984" television ad for the Macintosh, it was as if typography, like the huddled masses, was also being liberated from hierarchy, stasis, and uniformity. Type would no longer be invisible but as integral to the act of communication as the words themselves. No one harnessed the power of desktop publishing to greater effect than Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, creators of the Sacramento-based digital foundry Emigre and its in-house, eponymous magazine, whose fonts and graphic design sent out shock waves which still ripple today. As one journal noted, "It would be difficult to discuss the effect of the Macintosh computer on the aesthetic of contemporary design and typography without mentioning Emigre Magazine and Emigre Fonts."

In Emigre they created a vital forum-both in editorial content and layout-for discussing the nature of design and its role in society. The magazine also served as a vehicle for introducing any number of their 200 licensed fonts to the world.

In addition to winning the 1994 Chrysler Design Award, Emigre has subsequently received a number of other commendations. In 1996 they received the Publish magazine Impact Award; in 1997 they were awarded the American Institute for Graphic Arts Gold Medal Award; and in 1998 they won the Charles Nyples Award for Innovation in Typography. They have also been featured in solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Most important, they have not stopped asking questions of design. Addressing the rapid ascent of Emigre's fonts from underground productions to starring attractions in Fortune 500 annual reports, VanderLans suggests credit is due to both the adventurous patron and the infiltrating outsider: "What otherwise is the purpose of an avant-garde?"