Zuzana Licko, born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1961, is a celebrated typeface designer and visual artist best known for co-founding Emigre, a digital type foundry.
Zuzana Licko. Photo courtesy of Emigre.
She moved to the United States and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in graphic communications. After graduation, she and her husband Rudy VanderLans founded Emigre Graphics, a design business that would later become one of the most influential design magazines of its time.
The complete Mr & Mrs Eaves family of fonts. Image courtesy of Emigre.
Licko was a firm believer in technology assisting designers. She was an early adopter of the Macintosh computer, incorporating the possibilities it offered into her works—one of the first digital typefaces out there. Among her most well-known typefaces are Mrs Eaves, Mr Eaves, Matrix, Modula, Filosofia, Lo-Res, and others. Licko has written numerous essays about typefaces and the way they’re perceived by readers. “The most popular typefaces are the easiest to read; their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read,” she said. Aside from typefaces, Licko is interested in creating ceramic and textile art objects. Her work is in the permanent collections of museums like MoMA NY and MoMA SF among others.
Cones And Arcs #3 by Zuzana Licko. Photo courtesy of Emigre.
Throw blanket by Zuzana Licko. Photo courtesy of Emigre.
Kazuyo Sejima (born 1956), a Japanese architect, who achieved global acclaim in the mid-90s with the co-founding of SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates), known for ethereal and minimalist architectural aesthetics.
kazuyoSejimaFront. Photo by Aiko Suzuki.
She is famous for designing the New Museum in New York City (2003), which is notable for its angular architecture. One innovative aspect was her use of unconventional materials that added a sense of lightness to the building, making it appear almost weightless.
New Museum of Contemporary Art. Courtesy of Nathan Bevil and the Ohio History Connection.
Another notable work is the Glass Pavilion in Toledo (2006), Ohio, where she conjured up a see-through design, blurring the lines between inside and outside. After returning to Japan, Kazuyo embarked on designing two of the nation’s most prominent national art museums, the Oita Prefectural Art Museum (2015) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (2004). Kazuyo Sejima also has a passion for fashion and has collaborated with Comme des Garçons, a renowned fashion brand. She even curated an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, bridging the worlds of architecture and fashion.
Photo by Ishikawa Koji. Courtesy of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion. Courtesy of Nathan Bevil and the Ohio History Connection.