Zapfino is a
calligraphic
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as ...
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
designed for
Linotype by
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
designer
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 Pa ...
in 1998. It is based on an alphabet Zapf originally penned in 1944. As a
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
, it makes extensive use of
ligatures and character variations (for example, the lower case letter d has nine variations).
History
In 1983, Zapf had completed the typeface ''
AMS Euler
AMS Euler is an upright cursive typeface, commissioned by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and designed and created by Hermann Zapf with the assistance of Donald Knuth and his Stanford graduate students. It tries to emulate a mathematician ...
'' with
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...
and
David Siegel of
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
for the
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
, a typeface for mathematical composition including
fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letters. David Siegel had recently finished his studies at Stanford and was interested in entering the field of typography. He told Zapf his idea of making a typeface with a large number of glyph variations; he wanted to start with an example of Zapf's calligraphy that was reproduced in a publication by the Society of Typographical Arts in Chicago.
Zapf was concerned that this was the wrong way to go, and while he was interested in creating a complicated program, he was worried about starting something new. However, Zapf remembered a page of calligraphy from his sketchbook from 1944, and considered the possibility of making a typeface from it. He had previously tried to create a calligraphic typeface for Stempel in 1948, but hot metal composition was too limiting on the freedom of swash characters. Such a result could only be achieved using modern digital technology, and so Zapf and Siegel began work on the complicated software necessary. Siegel also hired Gino Lee, a type designer from
Boston, Massachusetts, to render the extensive character set. (The "ino" in "Zapfino" refers to Gino.)
However, just before the project was completed, Siegel wrote a letter to Zapf, saying that his girlfriend had left him and that he had lost all interest in anything. Siegel abandoned the project and started a new life, working on bringing color to
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
computers and later becoming an Internet design expert.
Zapfino's development had become seriously delayed, until Zapf presented the project to
Linotype. They were prepared to complete it and reorganized the project. Zapf worked with Linotype to create four alphabets and various ornaments, flourishes, and other
dingbat
In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or a ...
s. ''Zapfino'' was released in 1998 as a
Type 1 font.
Availability
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
includes Zapfino in
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
and
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
, partly to demonstrate its advanced typographic features. The font includes over 1,400
glyph
A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
s as of the most recent version, and contains much bigger letters than the Zapfino fonts Linotype sells in retail channel. Since then,
Linotype has extended Zapfino to include an additional Forte weight in their ''Zapfino Extra'' family which Apple has not licensed for distribution with macOS.
Zapfino Extra (2003)
In 2003, Hermann Zapf completely reworked the Zapfino design, creating Zapfino Extra, a large expansion of the Zapfino family designed in close collaboration with Akira Kobayashi. This font family uses
Apple Advanced Typography
Apple Advanced Typography (AAT) is Apple Inc.'s computer technology for advanced font rendering, supporting internationalization and complex features for typographers, a successor to Apple's little-used QuickDraw GX font technology of the mid-19 ...
and
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
technologies, allowing automatic ligatures and contextual glyph substitutions, accurately reflecting the fluid and dynamic nature of Zapf's calligraphy. This font family comes in 2 font weights, with 3 fonts in Forte weight and total of 12 fonts in the family. The Pro fonts contain glyphs found in other fonts of their respective weights.
Zapfino Extra W1G (2010)
It is a version Zapfino Extra with support of Greek and Cyrillic characters. The family includes Zapfino Extra Paneuropean W1G One font.
OpenType features include access all alternates, fractions, standard ligatures, localized forms, ordinals, scientific inferiors, superscript/subscript, discretionary ligatures.
Zapfino Extra Cyrillic One (2010)
It is a subset of Zapfino Extra Paneuropean W1G One font with only support of Cyrillic characters.
Additional OpenType features include ornaments.
Zapfino Extra X (2003)
Linotype also created Zapfino Extra X, which was based on the 1998 Zapfino fonts included with macOS. This font family, like the Zapfino in macOS, features letters four times larger than the Linotype counterpart.
Zapfino Arabic (2014–2015)
Designed by
Nadine Chahine
Nadine Chahine (in Arabic: نادين شاهين) is a Lebanese type designer working as the CEO at I Love Typography Ltd and the Director at ArabicType Ltd. From 2005 till 2015 she worked as the Arabic Specialist at Linotype and Monotype Imagi ...
of Monotype Imaging, it is an Arabic version of Zapfino combining Naskh and Nastaaliq calligraphic styles. The character proportions refer to Naskh manuscript traditions but the isolated and final forms bring with them an exaggerated swash-like movement that references the extravagant ascenders and descenders of Zapfino. Work on Zapfino Arabic started in the summer of 2012, and after a meeting with
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 Pa ...
in Darmstadt in August to look at early sketches, the project was approved and ready to start.
The family includes only 1 font in regular weight, with font leaning right as the original Zapfino fonts designed by Hermann Zapf. OpenType features include 10 stylistic sets.
Atheism symbol
![ScarletLetter](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/ScarletLetter.svg)
In various online communities, a scarlet-colored capital A in the Zapfino font has been used as an unofficial symbol representing
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
. Officially, the "scarlet A" is used as the logo of the
Out Campaign
The Out Campaign is a public awareness initiative for freethought and atheism in the US. It was initiated by Robin Elisabeth Cornwell, and is endorsed by Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist. The campaign aims to create more openness about being ...
, a public awareness initiative for freethought and atheism, which has been endorsed by
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
.
See also
*
Lucida Calligraphy: another calligraphic font using modern font programming to provide alternates, based on the writing of
Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi
Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi (Cornedo Vicentino, 1475?–1527?) was a papal scribe and type designer in Renaissance Italy.
Very little is known of the circumstances of his life. He may have started his career as a writing master in Venice, a ...
.
References
External links
*Linotype pages
ZapfinoThere is no end: Omega and Zapfino– Article on Zapfino which includes comparison of typed text with and without ligatures as a
flipbook
A flip book, flipbook, flicker book, or kineograph is a booklet with a series of images that very gradually change from one page to the next, so that when the pages are viewed in quick succession, the images appear to animate by simulating moti ...
{{OS X typefaces
Linotype typefaces
Apple Inc. typefaces
Script typefaces
Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1998
Typefaces designed by Hermann Zapf