[1] Emigre was a graphic design magazine founded by fellow Dutchmen Marc Susan, Menno Meyjes, and Rudy VanderLans who met in San Francisco.

VanderLans invited guests such as Gail Swanlund, Anne Burdick, Andrew Blauvelt, and Experimental Jetset to edit dedicated issues, and readers began to recognize Jeffery Keedy, Kenneth FitzGerald, Lorraine Wild, and Diane Gromala as recurring contributors.

About this time, Emigre's articles began to explore contemporary design practice more intentionally, catalyzing the magazine as a kind of analog discussion forum.

Design discourse became primary to Emigre's publications by 1994, and the magazine transitioned in 1995 from its oversized layout to a text-friendlier format that debuted with issue 33.

Issues 60–63 were accompanied by additional media: three compact discs (featuring the music of Honey Barbara, The Grassy Knoll and Scenic) and one DVD (Catfish, an experimental documentary film on the work of designer and performance artist Elliott Earls).

In its fourth and final incarnation, the last six issues of Emigre (64–69) were co-published by Princeton Architectural Press as small softcover books.

In 1991, the prominent New York designer Massimo Vignelli criticized Emigre's work, calling it "garbage" and "an aberration of culture" in an interview published by Print magazine.

[5] Six years later Licko and VanderLans were named AGIA medalists[6] and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art staged a solo exhibition of Emigre's work.

And finally, starting with issue 64, the magazine became a book format, published semi-annually, where each page measured 133 × 210 mm.