Hermann Zapf was born November 8, 1918 and was a German typeface designer. He has had an influence on many of my personal designs since I use variations of the typefaces he created including Aldus. Other notable typefaces developed by Zapf include Optima, Palatino and Zapfino.
He served for the German army during World War II and because of heart troubles was confined to a desk writing reports for soldiers. It was here that his hand drawn typefaces and calligraphy began to take form. His journals and reports were widely respected as art.
After the war, he was given a position at type foundry Stempel. They hired him based solely on the work presented from his military reports and sketchbooks kept during the war.
Later during the 1960's, he was known as one of the first type designers to experiment with creating type in digital form and it wasn't until he traveled to the United States that his ideas on digital type began to generate acceptance.
Zapf's contribution to design and his influence on modern type are important achievements in our industry.
[image: Caxtonian]
©2007 David Scott | Cosmic
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