Hermann
apf Z
.
n n a H ermann m r e H f p a Z
apf Z
“
A new printing type has a long, often
�
thorny way to completion. Before type has
come far enough to please outsiders, it
adds grey hairs to its co-producers. -Hermann Zapf
f o table of e l b a T Contents s t n e t n o C
1 Introduction to Typography..................................... 6 2 War Life.................................................................. 8 3 Post War.................................................................. 9 4 Typography............................................................ 10 5 Zapfino.................................................................. 12 6 Today..................................................................... 14 7 Early Life................................................................. 4
e f i L Early Life y Earl H
ermann Zapf was born on November 8, 1918 in Nuremburg, Germany. At the time, Germany was a very unstable country marked by the German Revolution in Munich and Berlin, the end of World War I, the fleeing of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Spanish flu pandemic that killed over 20 million people, including two of his siblings. Germany was later struck by a terrible famine that reached its peak in 1920, affecting the whole country, including the Zapf family. Thankfully in 1925 Zapf ’s mother was able to send him to school where he received a Quaker meal daily thanks to a program organized by Herbert Hoover prior to becoming the 31st president of the United States a few years later.
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From an early age Zapf was always interested in technical subjects, one of his favorite books was the yearly publication “Das neue Universum” (The New Universe), which covered each year’s latest inventions and
discoveries. Books like such inspired Zapf and his older brother to create inventions of their own, one of their favorites being a detector radio, also known as a crystal set. Together they would spend hours listening to their radio under their bed sheets. Trying to keep their antics a secret from their parents, Zapf and his brother invented several “systems” including a secret alphabet, a blend of German and Cyrillic, which could only be read if you knew the code. This could perhaps be called Zapf ’s first involvement with type. In 1933 Zapf left school with the hopes of becoming an electrical engineer. However, his father became unemployed after having trouble with the Third Reich for being involved in trade unions. Soon after loosing his job, his father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp for a short time, putting Zapf ’s desire to attend the Ohm Polytechnical Institute in Nuremberg on hold.
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y h p a r Typogr Typog aphy A Young Hermann Zapf at the Werkstatt Haus zun Fursteneck
introduction to
D
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ue to the political heat in Germany at the time making it impossible for Zapf to pursue his dreams in electrical engineering, he had to find an apprenticeship. His teachers suggested that due to his ability to draw he should look for an apprenticeship as a lithographer. Each time he would go for an interview he would get bombarded with political questions and due to his father’s status with the new government, he would always be rejected. In 1934, after ten months of searching, he finally found an apprenticeship. Although the company that finally accepted him was not looking for an apprentice lithographer, they
The Werkstatt Haus zun Fusteneck
offered him a position as an apprentice retoucher. Being the last place he could apply at, he accepted the four-year contract as a photo retoucher with Nuremburg printers Karl Ulrich & Co. It was not until 1935 when Zapf first became interested in lettering while attending an exhibition in Nuremberg in memory of the late typographer Rudolf Koch who had passed away a year prior. It was at this exhibit where Zapf purchased “Das Schreiben als Kunstfertigkeit” (The Art of Writing) by Koch and “Writing and Illuminating and Lettering” by Edward Johnston. It was thanks to these two books that Zapf taught himself calligraphy and thus sparked his career in typography. Once his supervisor at his apprenticeship notices his talent in lettering, Zapf ’s duties switched to lettering retouching and improving his colleagues’ work. Soon after the end of his apprenticeship term, Zapf left his hometown for Frankfurt since he did not have a journeyman’s certificate which would make it impossible for him to get a job in Nuremberg. While in Frankfurt, Zapf found a position working for Paul Koch, son of his greatest inspiration, Rudolf Koch at the Werkstatt Haus zun Fursteneck. It was here where Zapf designed his first typeface, Gilgengart, for the D. Stempel AG Type Foundry in 1938.
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e f i L War Life r Wa O
n April 1st, 1939, a year after designing his first typeface, Hermann Zapf was recruited by the military to reinforce the Siegfried Line in Pirmasens, Germany, fighting against France. Due to a heart condition caused by his unfamiliarity with hard labor, Zapf was taken off of the field and given a desk job handling camp records. At the start of World War II in September of 1939 his entire unit was transferred to Wehrmacht, Germany. Due to his previous medical history and heart condition Zapf was not transferred with the rest of his unit and instead was dismissed from the military.
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A couple of years later on April 1st, 1942, Zapf was called once again by the Prussians to serve in the military in Weimar. Although he was originally chosen to be in the airforce, he was sent to work with the artillery instead. Training was a difficult time for Zapf since he routinely confused left from right and was very clumsy when handling guns. It was due to this that his career in artillery came to a premature end. Since he was no longer welcome on the field, he was sent back to a desk job in Juterbog where he trained as a cartographer, drawing maps of Spain. At the end of the war Zapf was taken prisoner of war by the French and was held at a hospital in Tubigen. Since he was an artist he was treated very well by the French and due to his poor health he was let go just four weeks after the end of the war.
Sextan: Tool Used for Cartography
r a Post War W t Pos A
Inside the D. Stempel AG Type Foundry
fter the war had ended Hermann Zapf went back to Nuremburg to his parents. Although Nuremburg had suffered great damage from the war, city life eventually returned to normal. It was there where Zapf taught his first calligraphy lesson in 1946 as part of an initiative to build the German Federation of Trade Unions. Teaching conditions were very poor and almost primitive, leading him to return to Frankfurt in 1947. There he was offered the position of Artistic Head of the in-house printshop for the Stempel type foundry. Stempel did not ask Zapf for any qualifications, certifications, or references, all it took was them seeing his sketchbooks from his time at war and the calligraphic piece, Junggesellentext, he created for Hans von Weber in 1944. During these post-war years was when Zapf truly began exploring the world of design and typography. Between 1939 and 1941 he designed plates for the publication “Feder and Stichel� (Pen and Graver) which was printed in 1949 in the D. Stempel AG printshop. From 1948 to 1950 Zapf taught calligraphy twice a week to two classes of graphics students at the Arts and Crafts School in Offenbach, now the School of Design. In 1951 he got married to fellow typographer Gudrun von Hesse who taught at the Stadel School in Frankfurt. Zapf has since dedicated the his career to publishing design for several publishing houses as well as developing several printing types for hot metal composition, phototypesetting, and digital resolution. Because of his moral principles Zapf avoided working with advertising agencies.
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F
y h p a r g Typography Typo
rom the start, Hermann Zapf has been a pioneer in the world of type design, designing over 200 different typefaces. Not only is Zapf known for designing such brilliant typefaces but also for exploring many different methods of production, starting with hot metal composition, phototypesetting, and finally digitizing many fonts used for desktop publishing.
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Zapf Working on a Typeface.
Two of his most famous typefaces include Palatino and Optima, which can be found on nearly every computer currently in the market. Zapf worked with August Rosenberger to design the Palatino typeface, named after 16th century Italian calligrapher, Giambattista Palatino in 1948. Optima was designed in 1952 and released in 1958 by Stempel who also developed the name for the typeface. Zapf has been working on developing type digitally for computers since the 1960’s, constantly staying current with the latest technology and even inventing his own digital typesetting program called “hz-program” which was later purchased by Adobe and set the basis for the InDesign program. Some of the many typefaces he has designed include Aldus, Aurelia, Kompakt, Melior, Noris Script, Saphir, Vario, Venture, Zapf Essentials, and the famous Zapfino, amongst many others.
Some of Zapf ’s Many Typefaces
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Aa Bb Cc D Ff Gg Hh Ii Ll Mm Nn O Qq Rr Ss T Vv Ww Xx Y
Dd Ee i JjKk Oo Pp Tt Uu Yy Z z
o n Zapfino fi p Za Z apfino, one of Zapf ’s most famous typefaces, was designed in 1998 for Linotype. Zapfino was the result of a request from David Siegel of Stanford University who worked with Zapf and Donald Knuth on the AMS Euler typeface. Siegel’s request, who was also a member of the American Mathematical Society, was to create a type face with an extensive number of glyph variations. At this request Zapf remembered a page of calligraphy he had worked on developing but ended up being too complicated for hot metal composition and decided to use this as a basis for what would be the Zapfino typeface. Halfway through the project Siegel, who had broken up with his girlfriend, decided to leave the project to go work with Macintosh. Although this caused a great delay in the project, Zapf presented Zapfino to Linotype in 1988, which later released it at a Type 1 font. In 1993 Zapf worked on reworking the Zapfino typeface, re releasing it as Zapfino Extra as Apple Advanced Typography and Open Type.
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y Today a d o T Hermann Zapf and his Wife
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Z
apf has clearly made a name for himself as one of the leading typographers in the world. To this day Zapf continues to revolutionize the field of type alongside his wife, Gudrun Zapf von Hesse, both of which have won many awards for their works. Recently Zapf was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his many achievements and contributions to society.
s e c r Sources u So Print: • International Typeface Corporation. (1982). International calligraphy today. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. • Karow, P. (1994). Digital typefaces : description and formats. Berlin; New York: Springer-Verlag. Web: • Hermann Zapf. (2011). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/655862/Hermann-Zapf • Linotype. (2011). Order of merit for hermann zapf. Retrieved from http://www.linotype. com/6336/orderofmeritforhermannzapf.html • Zapf, H. (1996). The lifestory of hermann zapf. Retrieved from http://download.linotype. com/free/howtouse/Zapf Biography.pdf Images: • http://image.linotype.com/files/pdf/alphabet_samplepages.pdf • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Durmersheim_Bunker.jpg • http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Sextant.jpg/451px-Sextant.jpg • http://image.linotype.com/cms/stempel2_d21897i34.jpg * http://image.linotype.com/cms/gzapf_hzapf_d29057i5.jpg • http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/5/56/HermannZapf_imSetzkasten.png • http://whitecu.be/art/54_Zapfino2.jpg • http://www.jbwwebsites.com/AA210f/Type210/HandstypeZ.jpg • http://image.linotype.com/fontlounge/designers/zapf/zapf.gif • http://www.sagittariuscreations.com/jdesigns/Hermann_Zapf/ZapfSigning.jpg • http://image.linotype.com/cms/gudrun_hermann_zapf_d15596i66.jpg
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n o h p o Colophon Col
T
his booklet was made on a MacBook Pro. Page layout and design created in Adobe InDesign CS5. Images edited using Adobe Photoshop CS5. Typefaces used in this booklet include Trajan Pro, Adobe Caslon Pro, and Zapfino. Printed at the San Francisco State University Bookstore Copy Center in San Francisco, California.
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Mario Mejia DAI 322: Computer Graphics Imaging Design and Industry Department San Francisco State University Spring 2011