Optima (1958)

Optima, designed by German Hermann Zapf was created between the years 1952-1955 and was released in 1958 by D. Stempel AG.

Zapf began creating Optima during the early 1950s whilst staying in Florence. Inspired by the letters from the floor of the Santa Croce church, he began doing sketches on two 1000 lire bank notes. Hence, Optima’s characteristics and proportion appeared to be of a classical Roman style without the serifs. An example of this can be found in its capitals as they directly reference Roman square capitals. The letters were also designed in the proportions of the Golden Section.

Optima was initially intended to be a display face but after suggestions from Monroe Wheeler from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Zapf decided to tweak the design into a text type, so it could be used in print publications.

In 2002, Zapf collaborated with Japanese typeface designer Akira Kobayashi to develop Optima nova, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family.

Optima can be classed as an example of humanist sans serif typeface, which are generally characterised as typefaces that contain uneven width of strokes, non-perpendicular cuts, and slightly bent off tips of strokes. These qualities went against the geometric features of many of the sans serif typefaces of the time, with an aim of improving legibility and making them friendlier.

Zapf’s idea was to create a typeface, which was halfway in between a sans serif like Futura and classical Roman. Unlike most other sans serif typeface with their geometric letterforms and constant use of straight lines, Optima’s stems had slightly curved out lines. This made it seem more elegant and provided a faux classy quality. These qualities also gave it a sense of personality, unlike many of the other sterile and efficiency-centric sans serif typefaces of the time.

Optima is a proportional typeface as its letters carry various widths and its design is not very uniform at all. This can be seen in the tapering throughout the anatomy of each letter. The width of the stems, arms and extenders of the typeface are reduced as they reach the centre. Optima’s proportion references the Golden Section, with its x-height equalling the minor and ascenders-descenders the major. Zapf believed hat Optima was the first German type, which was not based on the standard baseline alignment. Lawson (1990) quotes Zapf when he says “This baseline is too deep for a roman, as it was designed for the high x-height of the Fraktur and Textura letters. Thus, too many German types have ascenders which are too long and descenders which are too short” (p. 329).

Optima was popular during the late 1950s-1960s and used extensively by graphic designers due to its faux classy quality. It is often used in signage, as it looks good in larger sizes. It can also be quite effective as continuous text, as the contrast of its strokes and its larger counters make it more adaptable compared to the more geometric-based sans serif typefaces.

Reference List

Lawson, A.S. (1990). Anatomy of a Typeface. New Hampshire: David R Godine

Linotype. The Lifestory of Hermann Zapf. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.linotype.com/1494-12709/thetypefacespalatinoandoptima.html

RightReading. The Typehead Chronicles: Optima. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.rightreading.com/Typehead/optima.htm

Typophile.Optima. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://typophile.com/node/15685

WebReference. Sans Serif History. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.webreference.com/dlab/9802/sanserif.html