Hermann Zapf collection

“While many calligraphers and type designers of the twentieth century have reached a high aesthetic plane, none deserves more credit for raising these often neglected areas to the level of a fine art than Hermann Zapf. Through his nearly two hundred type designs, several hundred book designs, and superlative calligraphic art, Zapf has enriched the world with a body of work in the letter arts that has scarcely been equaled.”*

Hermann Zapf was born on November 8, 1918 in Nuremberg, Germany during a time of revolution, unrest, and epidemic. From an early age Zapf was inventive; he created secret written codes that constituted his first alphabetic creations. Despite desires to become an engineer, Zapf more practically apprenticed as a photo retoucher, during which he taught himself calligraphy modeled after Rudolf Koch and Edward Johnston’s texts. After completing his apprenticeship, Zapf moved to Frankfurt and worked at Werkstatt Haus zum Fürsteneck (run by Koch’s son) where he practiced typography and wrote songbooks.

Zapf designed his first printing type in 1938 for D. Stempel AG typefoundry and Linotype GmbH prior to being drafted by the German Army to France. Due to health issues and lack of artillery skill, Zapf found himself serving the war effort as the youngest cartographer in the German army. After returning to Germany, Zapf went back to the Stempel foundry where, in conjunction with punchcutter August Rosenberg, produced Feder und Stichel (later released in English as Pen and Graver).

Zapf married Gudrun von Hesse (also a type designer and renowned bookbinder) in 1951, at which time both were teaching. Zapf started teaching in 1946 and continued to teach throughout his career, including typographic computer programming at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 1977 to 1987. Zapf embraced new technologies that revolutionized typography and co-founded Design Processing International Inc. to develop programs for typographic structures.

Zapf’s work also included book designs for publishing houses and widely-used typefaces: Palatino, Zapfino, Virtuosa, Zapf Dingbats, and Optima. His font Optima has the distinction of having been used to etch over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.

Zapf has been honored by many awards including the Gold Medal of the Type Directors’ Club of New York (1967), Gutenberg Prize of the city of Mainz (1974), the first Frederic W. Goudy Award from RIT (1969), and the SOTA Typography Award (2003).

For a thorough story of Zapf’s life and career, refer to his narrative in Alphabet Stories: A Chronicle of Technical Developments by Hermann Zapf. Rochester, New York: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press, 2007.

*The Fine Art of Letters: The Work of Hermann Zapf, Exhibited at the Grolier Club, New York. New York: Grolier Club, 2000 (p. 5).