Hermann Zapf expires at the age of 96. He created beautiful type faces.He created around 200 typefaces in different scripts. His work spanned from the metal typesetting to phototypesetting to digital typesetting. Palatino, Optima, Melior, Zapfino, Zapf Dingbats are all fonts attributed to him. According to Jerry Kelly, a leading US typographer, what  Michelangelo was to sculpture and Beethoven to music, Zapf was to type design. The type designer works letter by letter but at the same time takes a holistic view. He has to pay attention to to the shapes of the letters, modulation in the thickness of a letter’s lines and the relationship of the letters to one another. You have to combine beauty with clarity. A type designer’s creativity is bound by practicality. It is constrained by the alphabet. As the type is to be read, the design cannot change the nature of the alphabet beyond a limit. He created typefaces for the Hallmark greeting cards.

As a young man, he worked as an apprentice. He was a photo retoucher.Koch’s work inspired him. he taught himself calligraphy through books. His first design was print type Gilgengart. He drew Palatino in 1948. he taught at various institutions.