13 Facts About Optima

1.

Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958.

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2.

Optima was inspired by classical Roman capitals and the stonecarving on Renaissance-period tombstones Zapf saw in Florence on a 1950 holiday to Italy.

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3.

Zapf intended Optima to be a typeface that could serve for both body text and titling.

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4.

Optima quickly sketched an early draft of the design on a 1000 lira banknote.

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5.

Optima was the first German typeface not based on the standard baseline alignment.

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6.

The proportions of Optima Roman are now in the Golden Section: lowercase x-height equalling the minor and ascenders-descenders the major.

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7.

Optima was first manufactured as a foundry version in 1958 by Stempel of Frankfurt, and by Mergenthaler in America shortly thereafter.

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8.

Optima's design follows humanist lines; its capitals originate from the classic Roman monumental capital model, reflecting a reverence for Roman capitals as an ideal form.

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9.

Optima is an example of a modulated-stroke sans-serif, a design type where the strokes are variable in width.

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10.

Optima is however quite restrained in stroke width variation; more display-oriented predecessors such as Britannic show far more differentiation in stroke width than Optima does.

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11.

Optima nova is a redesign of the original font family, designed by Hermann Zapf and Linotype GmbH type director Akira Kobayashi.

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12.

Optima is used for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and was used by John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

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13.

Optima was used in the official logo and most publications associated with Expo 67 in Montreal.

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