Hermann zapf alphabet on gold leaf artwork

"Spend Your Alphabets Lavishly,"—a quote from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables—aptly describes the lifework of two principal figures in contemporary graphic arts: Hermann and Gudrun Zapf. The Zapfs' year relationship with Rochester Institute of Technology is feted in this exhibition and catalogue, sponsored bygd RIT’s Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. The show presents rare holdings of Zapf materials held at the Cary Collection—the foremost Zapf archive outside of Germany. Distinguished typographer Jerry Kelly, curated the exhibition and designed the catalogue of type specimens, calligraphic exemplars, sketches, bindings, and book layouts. Cary Collection curator David Pankow, contributed an introduction describing the Zapfs' association with RIT since , when Hermann Zapf was first invited as professor in its college of printing. The exhibition fryst vatten on view at the Cary Collection through summer , and the catalogue is available for sale through RIT

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Alphabetica ()

Alphabetica ()
Dave Wood
Bound in vellum; open-spine binding sewn on vellum strips. H x W x D30 mm. 54 pages. Loosely inserted colophon. Edition of Acquired from the artist, 27 July
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.

From Alphabetica&#;s description as an exploration of the alphabet’s &#;diverse development from historic shapes to the infinite variations we see today in typefaces and calligraphic forms of the Western alphabet”, the reader might expect an academic work. The deeply embossed and debossed royal purple cover presenting the title in landscape format suggests otherwise as do the marbled endpapers and embossed gold foil title page. The cover is built up with a very strong paper made in Nepal, painted with acrylic then sprayed with semi-matte varnish. Inside, the reader finds a portfolio of twenty-five distinct &#;canvases&#; in which Wood demonstrates both historical sensitivity and artistic inspiratio

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Alphabet Stories By Hermann Zapf

After a complete sell-out of the American edition, RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press issued a second edition of Alphabet Stories: A Chronicle of Technical Developments by famed German calligrapher and typographer, Hermann Zapf.

This book is the first Hermann Zapf monograph to be typeset in the new Palatino Nova and Palatino Sans digital typefaces issued by Linotype. Written as an anecdotal first-person account, the reader is treated to Zapf’s personal recollections of technical breakthroughs. Zapf reveals milestones tracing his education in s Germany, to his work on forefront of computer-aided typesetting in the s, to the tour de force design of a complex calligraphic font—Zapfino in the late ’90s. Vivid reproductions of Zapf’s calligraphy, production proofs, typographic specimens, and photographs complete the portrait of one of the most prolific designers of our time.

Alphabet Stories, masterfully printed in color on an uncoated cream-colored pap