These delighted Zapf and appealed to his classic sense of design. The letters cut into the gravestone were unusual in that they lacked the traditional serifs. In 1950, Zapf was researching Italian typeface design at the Basilica di Santa Croce, in Florence, and happened upon an ancient Roman gravestone that would have been missed by most tourists and casual observers. In 2002, more than 50 years after the first sketches, Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi completed Optima nova, an expansion and redesign of the Optima family." It is available in 12 weights and 4 companion fonts with Central European characters and accents. Optima is an all-purpose typeface it works for just about anything from book text to signage. With the clear, simple elegance of its sans serif forms and the warmly human touches of its tapering stems, this family has proved popular around the world. Optima was produced in matrices for the Linotype typesetting machines and released in 1958. The type was cut by the famous punchcutter August Rosenberger at the D. In 1952, after careful legibility testing, the first drawings were finished. The letterforms were designed in the proportions of the Golden Ratio. These letters from the floor of the church inspired Optima, a typeface that is classically roman in proportion and character, but without serifs. He sketched letters from grave plates that had been cut about 1530, and as he had no other paper with him at the time, the sketches were done on two 1000 lire bank notes. In 1950, Zapf made his first sketches while visiting the Santa Croce church in Florence. Optima was designed by Hermann Zapf and is his most successful typeface.
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