Optima
Optima
Hermann Zapf, 1958
Sans-serif · Elegant, slightly classical. Cosmetics, memorials, luxury that does not want to shout.
A sans-serif with stroke contrast, which is a contradiction that mostly does not work and here does. Zapf drew the first sketches on banknotes in a Florence church in 1950, having no other paper. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has all 58,000 names cut in it.
The facts
- Designed by
- Hermann Zapf
- Released
- 1958
- Classification
- Sans-serif
- What it signals now
- Elegant, slightly classical. Cosmetics, memorials, luxury that does not want to shout.
Where you have seen it
- The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Estée Lauder
- Marks & Spencer for many years
Other typefaces from the 1950s
| Typeface | Year | Designer | What it signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Courier | 1955 | Howard Kettler | A typewriter, a screenplay, or code written before syntax highlighting. |
| Helvetica | 1957 | Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann | Neutral corporate modernism. So common it reads as no choice at all — which was the intent. |
| Univers | 1957 | Adrian Frutiger | Systematic Swiss design. The typeface for people who find Helvetica sloppy. |
This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.
Common questions
- Who designed Optima?
- Hermann Zapf, in 1958.
- What is Optima used for?
- Elegant, slightly classical. Cosmetics, memorials, luxury that does not want to shout. You will have seen it on The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Estée Lauder, Marks & Spencer for many years.
Related pages
- Typefaces from the 1950s 4 here
- Akzidenz-Grotesk H. Berthold AG, 1896
- Franklin Gothic Morris Fuller Benton, 1902
- Johnston Edward Johnston, 1916
- Futura Paul Renner, 1927
- Gill Sans Eric Gill, 1928
- Helvetica Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, 1957
- Univers Adrian Frutiger, 1957
- Eurostile Aldo Novarese, 1962
Sources
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)