June 11, 2015: Hermann Zapf

Anyone who has ever looked at a list of typefaces (or "fonts") has seen the name Zapf Dingbats or Zapf Chancery. Hermann Zapf, the designer of those typefaces, also designed some of the most well-known typefaces of the 20th century, including Palatino and Optima. He died recently at the age of 96, and rather than summarize his life story here, I'll link to Randy Cassingham's "Honorary Unsubscribe" feature so you can read more about Zapf's long life. It's worth the read.

(By the way, the Honorary Subscribe is a side project of Cassingham's This Is True, a weekly "weird news" email newsletter that started in June 1994 . . . making it one of the only continuously running features online that is older than the Daily Illuminator itself. Congratulations, Randy! If you don't know about True, you can subscribe for free to check it out or pay a little extra for earlier mailings with more weird stories and no ads. End of plug from a satisfied customer.)

-- Andrew Hackard