Typeface · Other
Optima
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1958.
About Optima
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic serif. Optima was inspired by classical Roman capitals and the stonecarving on Renaissance-period tombstones Zapf saw in Florence on a 1950 holiday to Italy. Zapf intended Optima to be a typeface that could serve for both body text and titling. To prove its versatility, Zapf set his entire book About Alphabets in the regular weight. Zapf retained an interest in the design, collaborating on variants and expansions into his eighties.
From the Wikipedia article “Optima”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Using Optima in a book
Test this typeface at both text and display sizes before committing; print a sample page at final size.
Commercial typefaces require a licence that covers embedding in PDFs and ebooks; check the foundry's licence before you publish.
Sources & data
- Structured data from Wikidata Q1091875 (CC0).
- Summary text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).