[1] The type foundry grew out of Emigre magazine, a publication founded by VanderLans and two Dutch friends who met in San Francisco, CA in 1984.

"[2]Coinciding with the advent of the Macintosh computer, Emigre took advantage of the new medium to design digital typefaces without requiring the equipment or manufacturing infrastructure of a traditional type foundry.

[3] Robin Kinross analyzed these fonts in a 1992 article for Eye Magazine: "The early productions were rationalised by reference to the requirements of low-memory computing and low-resolution screen display and printer output, and show considerate ingenuity in juggling with a heavily reduced formal repertoire, to make coherent sets of characters.

Starback recalls those early days: "Eventually we figured out how to get the web server to talk to our database and then authorize a credit card, still done with a dial-up modem.

Their success as pioneers in the digital type industry is in no small part credited to their eager adoption of new technologies and ability to recognize skill in contemporary designers, as expressed in a 2016 interview of Licko by Sally Kerrigan for Adobe Typekit:“Each of our font families exudes a certain quality that is either tied to the technology of the time, the level of craftsmanship of the designer, or the prevailing aesthetic preferences of the time.

This was later referred to as the “Legibility wars”[11] – a term coined in 2004 by Robin Kinross in his book Modern Typography: an Essay in Critical History.

Vignelli famously called Emigre a “typographic garbage factory,” insinuating that they were either a threat to the dominant graphic design ideals or insignificant as an “aberration of culture” in a typography panel discussion reported on in a 1991 issue of Print Magazine.

The typefaces were on display as part of the exhibit “Standard Deviations: Types and Families in Contemporary Design.”[16] Emigre remained faithful to their belief that legibility is a byproduct of exposure or practice.

Refusing to waver in the wake of criticism, Licko and VanderLans forged their own path, revolutionizing design aesthetics and becoming one of the most influential digital type foundries.

[18] The company's type library features fonts by Mark Andresen, Bob Aufuldish, Jonathan Barnbrook, Rodrigo Cavazos, Barry Deck, Eric Donelan, John Downer, Elliott Peter Earls, Edward Fella, Sibylle Hagmann, Frank Heine, John Hersey, Jeffery Keedy, Zuzana Licko, P. Scott Makela, Conor Mangat, Nancy Mazzei, Brian Kelly, Miles Newlyn, Claudio Piccinini, Just van Rossum, Christian Schwartz and Rudy VanderLans.