Humanist typeface serif12/3/2023 ![]() Thus, too many German types have ascenders which are too long and descenders which are too short. Zapf stated: "This base line is not ideal for a roman, as it was designed for the high x-height of the Fraktur and Textura letters. Optima was the first German typeface not based on the standard baseline alignment. "He thereupon changed the proportions of the lowercase, and by means of photography, he tested the suitability of the design for continuous reading application." Zapf designed the capital letters of Optima after the inscriptions on the Trajan Column (A.D. On the suggestion of Monroe Wheeler of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Zapf decided to adapt his typeface to be used as a book type. Like the Roman capitals, Optima's 'E' and 'R' occupy about a half-square, the 'M' is wide and its sides are splayed. In his book About Alphabets, Zapf commented that his key aim in designing Optima's capitals, inspired by the Roman capital model, was the desire to avoid the monotony of all capital letters having a roughly square footprint, as he felt was true of some early sans-serif designs. Zapf was to work on the development of Optima during most of the following decade. He quickly sketched an early draft of the design on a 1000 lira banknote. While in Florence, Zapf was particularly interested in the design of the lettering in tombstones of the cemetery of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, in which the strokes subtly widen as they reach stroke terminals without ending in a serif. Interested in calligraphy and the history of Italian printing and lettering, Zapf first visited Italy in 1950. ![]() Portions of the text are copied onto one of his 1950 sketches. History Zapf cited this gravestone as inspiring Optima. Zapf retained an interest in the design, collaborating on variants and expansions into his eighties. To prove its versatility, Zapf set his entire book About Alphabets in the regular weight. Zapf intended Optima to be a typeface that could serve for both body text and titling. Optima was inspired by classical Roman capitals and the stonecarving on Renaissance-period tombstones Zapf saw in Florence on a 1950 holiday to Italy. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Faible's glyph set contains more than 600 characters, allowing you to enhance your layouts with ligatures, different sets of figures, case sensitive forms, arrows, and other necessities for the ambitious typographer.įaible is the typeface that puts "fun" back into "functional".Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. The font family consists of six weights (ranging from Thin to Black), each with its corresponding italic style. Nontheless, it's carefully spaced and equipped with plenty OpenType features-a reliable tool for short texts and body copy, too. That makes it a great choice for book covers, posters, editorial design, branding, corporate design, advertising, and packaging. With its trademark glyphs, the swooshin' K and k, and its friendly details, Faible will radiate optimism in display sizes, titles, and headlines. Rather, they were designed independently with an internal dynamic that sets them apart on the page. Faible's italics are rendered playfully, too: they're not merely sloped Roman styles. The curved leg of the R adds to this joyful mood. Take the bowls of B, P, and R: they are merrily bulged, like balloons about to take off. The typeface itself isn't rooted in calligraphy, but there are quite some details in Faible that reference handwriting and add a friendly, humanist facet to its appearance. Sure, it's a typeface for serious work-but all serious work is better when you put a smile on your face and a whistle on your lips. You cannot not like this good-natured humanist typeface.
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