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Optima
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif. Optima was inspired by classical Roman capitals and the stonecarving on Renaissance-period tombstones Zapf saw in Florence on a 1950 holiday to Italy. Zapf intended Optima to be a typeface that could serve for both body text and titling. To prove its versatility, Zapf set his entire book ''About Alphabets'' in the regular weight. Zapf retained an interest in the design, collaborating on variants and expansions into his eighties. History Interested in calligraphy and the history of Italian printing and lettering, Zapf first visited Italy in 1950. 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 subtl ...
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Optima Nova Specimen
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif. Optima was inspired by classical Roman capitals and the stonecarving on Renaissance-period tombstones Zapf saw in Florence on a 1950 holiday to Italy. Zapf intended Optima to be a typeface that could serve for both body text and titling. To prove its versatility, Zapf set his entire book ''About Alphabets'' in the regular weight. Zapf retained an interest in the design, collaborating on variants and expansions into his eighties. History Interested in calligraphy and the history of Italian printing and lettering, Zapf first visited Italy in 1950. 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 ...
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Hermann Zapf
Hermann Zapf (; 8 November 1918 – 4 June 2015) was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino. He is considered one of the greatest type designers of all time. Early life Zapf was born in Nuremberg during turbulent times marked by the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in Munich and Berlin, the end of World War I, the exile of Kaiser Wilhelm, and the establishment of Bavaria as a free state by Kurt Eisner. In addition, the Spanish flu pandemic took hold in Europe in 1918 and 1919. Two of Zapf's siblings died of the disease. Famine later struck Germany, and Zapf's mother was grateful to send him to school in 1925, where he received daily meals in a program organized by Herbert Hoover. In school, Zapf was mainly interested in technical subjects. One of his favorite books was the annual science journal ' ...
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Sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. Sans-serif typefaces have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word , meaning "without" and "serif" of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word meaning "line" or pen-stroke. In printed media, they are more commonly used for display use and less for body text. Before the term "sans-serif" became common in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans-serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in typeface na ...
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Palatino
Palatino is the name of an old-style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. Named after the 16th-century Italian master of calligraphy Giambattista Palatino, Palatino is based on the humanist types of the Italian Renaissance, which mirror the letters formed by a broad nib pen reflecting Zapf's expertise as a calligrapher. Its capital 'Y' is in the unusual 'palm Y' style, inspired by the Greek letter upsilon, a trait found in some of the earliest versions of the letter such as that of Aldus Manutius. Unlike most Renaissance typeface revivals, which tend to have delicate proportions such as a low x-height (short lower-case letters and longer ascenders and descenders), Palatino has larger proportions, increasing legibility. Palatino was particularly intended as a design for trade or 'jobbing' use, such as headings, advertisements and display printin ...
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Sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. Sans-serif typefaces have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word , meaning "without" and "serif" of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word meaning "line" or pen-stroke. In printed media, they are more commonly used for display use and less for body text. Before the term "sans-serif" became common in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans-serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in typeface na ...
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Humanist Sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. Sans-serif typefaces have become the most prevalent for display of text on computer screens. On lower-resolution digital displays, fine details like serifs may disappear or appear too large. The term comes from the French word , meaning "without" and "serif" of uncertain origin, possibly from the Dutch word meaning "line" or pen-stroke. In printed media, they are more commonly used for display use and less for body text. Before the term "sans-serif" became common in English typography, a number of other terms had been used. One of these outmoded terms for sans-serif was gothic, which is still used in East Asian typography and sometimes seen in typeface na ...
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Monotype Imaging
Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with consumer electronics devices. Incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, the company has been responsible for many developments in printing technology—in particular the Monotype machine, which was a fully mechanical hotmetal typesetter, that produced texts automatically, all single type. Monotype was involved in the design and production of many typefaces in the 20th century. Monotype developed many of the most widely used typeface designs, including Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Arial, Bembo and Albertus. Via acquisitions including Linotype GmbH, International Typeface Corporation, Bitstream, FontShop, URW and Hoefler & Co., the company has gained the rights to major font families including Helvetica, ITC Fra ...
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Mergenthaler Linotype Company
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine (), a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacturer of book and newspaper typesetting equipment; outside North America, its only serious challenger for book typesetting was the Anglo-American Monotype Corporation. Starting in 1960, the Mergenthaler Linotype Company became a major supplier of phototypesetting equipment which included laser typesetters, typefonts, scanners, typesetting computers. In 1987, the US-based Mergenthaler Linotype Company became part of the German Linotype-Hell AG; in the US the company name changed to Linotype Co. In 1996, the German Linotype-Hell AG was taken over by the German printing machine company Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. A separate business, Linotype Library GmbH was established to manage the digital assets. In 2005, Linotype Library GmbH shortened i ...
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Type Color
Type color, or colour, is an element of typography that describes how dense or heavy the text appears on the page. Finding the correct balance of type color and white space can make text more easily readable. The term ''type color'' should not be confused with the usual meaning of color, (i.e. red, yellow, blue); instead it has more to do with the blackness or boldness of the text on the page. A bold font creates more contrast on the page, therefore creates more emphasis. Using a bold font is therefore one way that type color can be adjusted. There are four different decisions a typographer can make that affect the type color. These are the letter spacing, the way the specific font or type is designed, word spacing, and line spacing (leading). Text will appear darker or blacker if the letters are kerned more closely, or if there is less spacing between the lines of text. Other elements that affect type color can be harder to grasp, such as the rhythm of the type, the contrast, a ...
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Titling Capitals
In typography, titling capitals are a variant of uppercase Letter case is the distinction between the Letter (alphabet), letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain lang ... designed for heading and titles. The stroke width is reduced for use at larger point sizes where the stroke weight used in smaller text sizes would be too heavy. Titling faces are often made to complement text faces intended for book typesetting. Titling faces have more open counter-forms. References *Blackwell, Lewis. ''20th Century Type.'' Yale University Press: 2004. . *Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. ''The Encyclopædia of Type Faces.'' Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. . Typography Book design {{Digital-typography-stub ...
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Italic Type
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed text, to identify many types of creative works, to cite foreign words or phrases, or, when quoting a speaker, a way to show which words they stressed. One manual of English usage described italics as "the print equivalent of Underline, underlining"; in other words, underscore in a manuscript directs a typesetter to use italic. The name comes from the fact that calligraphy-inspired typefaces were first designed in Italy, to replace documents traditionally written in a handwriting style called chancery hand. Aldus Manutius and Ludovico Arrighi (both between the 15th and 16th centuries) were the main type designers involved in this process at the time. Along with blackletter and Roman type, it served as one of the major typefaces in the history ...
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Oblique Type
Oblique type is a form of type that slants slightly to the right, used for the same purposes as italic type. Unlike italic type, however, it does not use different glyph shapes; it uses the same glyphs as roman type, except slanted. Oblique and italic type are technical terms to distinguish between the two ways of creating slanted font styles; oblique designs may be labelled italic by companies selling fonts or by computer programs. Oblique designs may also be called slanted or sloped roman styles. Oblique fonts, as supplied by a font designer, may be simply slanted, but this is often not the case: many have slight corrections made to them to give curves more consistent widths, so they retain the proportions of counter (typography), counters and the thick-and-thin quality of strokes from the regular design. Type designers have described oblique type as less organic and calligraphic than italics, which in some situations may be preferred. Contemporary type designer Jeremy Tankard st ...
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