The Fine Art of Letters

This publication was intended to display some of the achievements in the fields of calligraphy, type design, book design and typography of the noted German graphic artist Hermann Zapf. It was published to coincide with an exhibition of Zapf’s work at the Grolier Club in New York. A special challenge was staying fairly close to the great variety of the original colors, while printing only part of the book in full color and using flat colors elsewhere. The book was set in the elegant Zapf Renaissance type (for the text) with Zapf’s latest alphabet design—the script type Zapfino—used for the headings. This is probably the first use of Zapfino for a book-length project. In the end, I think the book achieved its goal of displaying lesser-known Zapf works to a larger audience, thereby giving some hint of the extent of his artistic achievement.