Information
Many typefaces are distinctive or attractive at the expense of legibility and versatility. Not so the Optima® family. Simultaneously standing out and fitting in, there are few projects or imaging environments outside of its range. Although Optima is almost always grouped with sans serif typefaces, it should be considered a serifless roman. True to its Roman heritage, Optima has wide, full-bodied characters – especially in the capitals. Only the E, F and L deviate with narrow forms. It can be set quite tight, or even slightly open – especially the capitals. If there are any guidelines, Optima should be set more open than tight. It’s not that readability is affected that much when Optima is set on the snug side; it’s just that the unhurried elegance and light gray typographic color created by the face are disrupted when letters are set too tight. Optima is also about as gregarious as a typeface can be. It mixes well with virtually any serif design and a surprisingly large number of sans serif faces.
Technical Information
- Designer Hermann Zapf
- Styles 12
- Glyph Count416
- Released1958
OpenType Features
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Supported languages
Afar, Afrikaans, Aragonese, Asu, Bemba, Bena, Bosnian, Catalan, Cebuano, Chiga, Corsican, Czech, Welsh, Danish, Taita, German, Lower Sorbian, Jola-Fonyi, Embu, English, Esperanto, Spanish, Estonian, Basque, Finnish, Filipino, Faroese, French, Friulian, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Galician, Swiss German, Gusii, Manx, Croatian, Upper Sorbian, Hungarian, Interlingua, Indonesian, Ido, Icelandic, Italian, Lojban, Machame, Jju, Kamba, Makonde, Kabuverdianu, Kikuyu, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Shambala, Colognian, Kurdish, Cornish, Latin, Luxembourgish, Ganda, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Luo, Luyia, Latvian, Meru, Morisyen, Malagasy, Makhuwa-Meetto, Maori, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian Bokmål, North Ndebele, Low German, Norwegian Nynorsk, South Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Nyanja, Nyankole, Occitan, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Romansh, Rundi, Romanian, Rombo, Kinyarwanda, Rwa, Samburu, Sangu, Sardinian, Northern Sami, Sena, Sango, Sidamo, Slovak, Slovenian, Southern Sami, Lule Sami, Inari Sami, Shona, Somali, Albanian, Swati, Saho, Southern Sotho, Sundanese, Swedish, Swahili, Silesian, Teso, Turkmen, Tswana, Turkish, Taroko, Tsonga, Unknown language, Volapük, Vunjo, Walloon, Walser, Warlpiri, Wolof, Xhosa, Soga, Zulu
Buying Guide
We offer the possibility of buying individual styles as well as complete families, with a link to the official Monotype Website.
Overview
Optima
36 px
Optima Roman
Optima Regular Italic
Optima Medium
Optima Medium Italic
Optima DemiBold
Optima DemiBold Italic
Optima Bold
Optima Bold Italic
Optima Black
Optima ExtraBlack
Optima Black Italic
Optima ExtraBlack Italic
Optima Bold
80 px
As gregarious as
a typeface can be
Columns
Optima Bold
Many typefaces are distinctive or attractive at the expense of legibility and versatility. Not so the Optima® family. Simultaneously standing out and fitting in, there are few projects or imaging environments outside of its range. Although Optima is almost always grouped with sans serif typefaces, it should be considered a serifless roman. True to its Roman heritage, Optima has wide, full-bodied characters – especially in the capitals. Only the E, F and L deviate with narrow forms. It can be set quite tight, or even slightly open – especially the capitals.
If there are any guidelines, Optima should be set more open than tight. It’s not that readability is affected that much when Optima is set on the snug side; it’s just that the unhurried elegance and light gray typographic color created by the face are disrupted when letters are set too tight. Optima is also about as gregarious as a typeface can be. It mixes well with virtually any serif design and a surprisingly large number of sans serif faces.
Optima Bold
50 px
Although Optima is almost always grouped with sans serif typefaces, it should be considered a serifless roman. True to its Roman heritage, Optima has wide, full-bodied characters – especially in the capitals.