Q&A withHermann Zapf

Where do you search for inspiration? My work focuses upon digital type design and computer programs, for a like reason there is very little space for inspiration. You have to work within specific technical requirements and constraints to find the best solution for a given purpose

Professionally, who has influenced you the most? Edward Johnston in calligraphy.

Who is/was your greatest mentor(s) in life? Paul Standard (+1991) Standard was a teacher at the Cooper Union in novel York. He introduced me to the United States in 1952 and promot the art of calligraphy worldwide. Also Aaron consume s (+1992.) Burns was my partner in the firm Zapf, reduce to ashess & Company in New York. He was an ready in type-face design and in typography.

What is your greatest professional achievement? My typefaces: Palatino, Optima, Melior. The Zapfino Script was the greatest in quantity expanded and complicated script I at any time did. I taught typographic computer programs at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1977-1987)-it was the base of the firm Zapf, consume s & Company.

What is your work philosophy? The interpretation of a message should be direct, without delays caused by dint of fancy typefaces, amputated letter-forms, and other ideas ignoring the necessity of legibility. We no longer live in the time of Renaissance palaces and Baroque style of dresss but in the computer age. For present industrial products, letterforms of the 16th hundred or 18th century are an anachronism. We should also stop copying 19th hundred typography and graphic design. Design has an immense social responsibility, a cultural message to tribe in regards to taste, education, and communication.

What is your free-time philosophy? Save nature. Since we use up the treasures of this globe in in like manner many ways, I believe that it is our first and foremost responsibility to leave a serviceable environment for the next generation.

Do you have a favorite cause you like to work on? I am actual interested in the symbolism of figures and in magic square numbers, which are included in several of my designs. I am also interested in super ellipse, which was used in the design of the Melior Roman font

What is your favorite design studio? Pentagram.

If you were to invite 1-5 personalities for a dinner conversation, who would they be? Jerry Kelly (New York); Maxim Zhukov (New York); David Pankow (RIT Rochester); Julian Waters (Gaithersburg, VA) and Adrian Frutiger (Bern, Switzerland).

What do you collect? Fine editions. As a work artist and a type designer I am interested in fine printing for this is the classical form of work production and it is a dying art in this digital age.

What is your greatest in quantity valuable possession? Letters written by the agency of Albert Einstein, ca.1933.

Do you have any hobbies? Gardening.

If you were to retire tomorrow, what would you do with your at liberty time? I have been "retired" for 20 years now. on the other hand many ideas are still unfinished. I am still true much connected to type design. In the last years I redesigned several of my typefaces for digital use. more [i]or[/i] less have been done originally as metal emblems within the many limitations and compromises of the casting proces For digital resolution you have practically no limitations, in like manner today alphabets can be made better compared to in what way they were done in the past. Photo by dint of Christian L. Zapf

Copyright Graphis Inc. Jul/Aug 2004

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