Optima: The History

Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf, a German typeface designer. This was designed between 1952, 1955 and released in 1958 by Berthold. This font was created for a company called D. Stempel AG foundry located in Frankfurt,

Germany. Hermann Zapf has also designed another popular typefaces such as Palatino and Zapfino. Optima is a design that has included both serif sans, and serif in to a design. With this typeface, the design looks very stylised, and classy. This draws many graphic designers to use this font on large advertisement, where font is only needed to give the message to the public. During the 1960's and 1970's, loads of graphic designers used this font as this was one of the most attractive fonts during that decade. Many graphic designers used this font for main type advertisement, brochures, catalogues, and magazines. This font was also used for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and in John McCain’s presidential campaign.

My view on the Optima font is that I really like it. I think it looks neat, and professional. This is also very easy to read so if this was on a large A2 poster with large letters, I think people would be able to glace at it, and read the information very quickly. I really like the ancient look of this font, I think this makes this font stand out from others, due to its soft movement in the letters. I also think that the spacing in between the letters are a good space which helps to read the font easily. I think the think and thin areas really help this font to look interesting, they merge in with each other very well which makes the font look attractive. Comparing the upper-case letters and the lower-case letters, I feel they convey a completely different saying about them. The lower-case is very neat and tidy, and shows like it quite and smart looking. The upper-case letters I think are the complete opposite, they show strong, loud and striking to the public. The upper-case is very 'shouty' and using all upper-case in a poster would not attract many viewers. I think the capitals in this type face make them look like the Roman capitals, I think this looks great becuase this makes the font look old but stylish.