Optima
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Design Credits

First seen on MyFonts: April 10th, 2002
Designed by: Hermann Zapf
Designed when: 1958-1985
Contained in Category: Legible
Design owned by: Linotype
MyFonts Keywords: german, inscribed, legible, sans-serif, stressed sans, tapered

Optima

Initially conceiving this face as a competitor for Ludwig & Mayer’s Colonia, Walter Cunz at Stempel guided Hermann Zapf to the creation of this most elegant and legible of twentieth century sanserifs.

Linotype’s cautious licensing policies encouraged a number of unauthorized copies, none of which can be said to have added to the original.

Optima

Optima was designed by Hermann Zapf and is his most successful typeface.

In 1950, Zapf made his first sketches while visiting the Santa Croce church in Florence. He sketched letters from grave plates that had been cut about 1530, and as he had no other paper with him at the time, the sketches were done on two 1,000-lire bank notes. These letters from the floor of the church inspired Optima, a typeface that is classically roman in proportion and character, but without serifs.

The letterforms were designed in the proportions of the Golden Ratio. In 1952, after careful legibility testing, the first drawings were finished. The type was cut by the famous punchcutter August Rosenberger at the D. Stempel AG typefoundry in Frankfurt. Optima was produced in matrices for the Linotype typesetting machines and released in 1958.

With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, this family has proved popular around the world. Optima is an all-purpose typeface; it works for just about anything from book text to signage.

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Related Links

 • Linotype: Optima (English)

‘Optima’ is a trademark of Linotype GmbH which may be registered in certain jurisdictions

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