Unfortunately this calligraphic ductus is what makes most of Zapf’s typefaces hard to use for me today, because it firmly puts a 1950s air on any typographic design in which they are used. Test digitization of Hermann Zapf’s Mergenthaler Antiqua Century Modern, it still had Zapf’s distinct calligraphic approach showing through. What I found fascinating about it was that while it was a variation of the Modern genre, and as such quite close to other designs, e.g. The typeface appeared shortly before the transition from hot metal to photo typesetting and was not successful at the time, so it was never adapted to newer technologies. I had also done a test digitization of a forgotten typeface by Hermann Zapf, his Mergenthaler Antiqua, which I found in a 1967 Linotype specimen book. These squarish forms made Hermann Zapf’s Melior®, which I love very much, an obvious point of reference. I had squarish letter forms from the start, probably because on the coarse grid these were more easy to judge than rounder forms which need more subtle nuancing. In order to let the project not go completely undirected, I thought about what I could use as reference. I had a completely different set of uppercase letters in the beginning. The treatment of stroke terminals and serifs changed quite drastically in this phase of the design. I made my first drawings in July 2012, and immediately liked the solid appearance of the letters on the printed page.
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