Optima

Optima is the name of a typeface designed by Hermann Zapf between 1952-1955.

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A mid-20th century sans-serif design, Optima at first looks a little like a traditional sans-serif. However, its strokes are delicately tapered and carry residual serifs. In many ways, Optima's design follows humanist lines, but its italic variant is merely an oblique, a slanted roman.

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Like Palatino, another Zapf creation, Optima is widely admired and widely imitated.

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In the Bitstream font collection, Optima is called Zapf Humanist.

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Optima is the typeface used on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. It is also the typeface used by the University of New South Wales in its signage and logo.

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Typeface: In typography, a typeface consists of a co-ordinated set of character designs. Such a set usually comprises an alphabet of letters, a series of numerals and a selection of punctuation marks. Typefaces also exist of ideograms and symbols (for example, mathematical or map making glyphs)....

Hermann Zapf: Hermann Zapf (born in Nuremberg, Germany on November 8, 1918) is a prolific German typeface designer. He is married to calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse....

1952: 1952 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar)....