| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Hermann Zapf |
| Foundry | Linotype |
| Variations | Palatino Nova Palatino Sans |
Palatino is the name of a large typeface family that began as an old style serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf initially released in 1948 by the Linotype foundry.
In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype. The revised family incorporated extended Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic character sets.
Under the collaboration of Zapf and Akira Kobayashi, the Palatino typeface family was expanded. Linotype released the Palatino nova, Palatino Sans, and Palatino Sans Informal families, expanding the Palatino typeface families to include humanist sans-serif typefaces. Palatino nova was released in 2005, while the others were released in 2006.
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Named after 16th century Italian master of calligraphy Giambattista Palatino, Palatino is based on the humanist fonts of the Italian Renaissance, which mirror the letters formed by a broad nib pen; this gives a calligraphic grace. But where the Renaissance faces tend to use smaller letters with longer vertical lines (ascenders and descenders) with lighter strokes, Palatino has larger proportions, and is considered to be a much easier to read typeface.
It remains one of the most widely-used (and copied) text typefaces, has been adapted to virtually every type of technology, and is one of the ten most used serif typefaces. It is one of several related typefaces by Zapf, each showing influence of the Italian Renaissance letter forms. The group includes Palatine, Sistina, Michaelangelo Titling, and Aldus, which takes inspiration from printing types cut by Francesco Griffo c. 1495 in the print shop of Aldus Manutius.
Palatino Linotype is a version of the Palatino family that incorporates extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic characters, as well as currency signs, subscripts and superscripts, and fractions. The family includes roman and italic in text and bold weights. It is one of the few fonts to incorporate an interrobang.
Palatino nova is a redesigned version of Palatino, by Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi. This Palatino nova typeface family includes roman and italics in the light, text, medium, and bold weights, a titling face formerly called Michelangelo Titling, and a large and small capital face called Palatino nova Imperial formerly called Sistina.[1]
Palatino nova has reduced support on extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic characters. In particular, Greek and Cyrillic is only available in Regular and Bold weight fonts. However, extended accented Latin characters, ligatures, small letter forms, symbols are available in Private Use Area block. Palatino nova Titling replaces lowercase characters with true small capitals, and the supports for Greek Extended and Cyrillic characters are reduced.
The font family was premiered on 2005-11-24,[2] the same day as Hermann Zapf’s 87th birthday celebration.[3]
In Palatino Sans, the specimens shown in the preannouncement resemble Optima but have a softer, more organic feel.[4] Unlike the serifed counterpart, the Sans families do not have full Greek or Cyrillic characters.
Palatino Sans Informal incorporates informal characteristics to the Palatino Sans, such as asymmetrical A, K, N, W, X, Y, w.
It is a family designed by Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine and Hermann Zapf. The design is based on the Al-Ahram typeface designed by Zapf in 1956 but reworked and modified to fit the Palatino nova family. The design is Naskh in style but with a strong influence of Thuluth style.
This family only comes in 1 font, corresponding to Palatino nova Regular. It supports basic Latin, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu scripts. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages.
The digital type foundries Linotype and Adobe Systems sell authentic versions of Palatino and derivative families. Certain hot metal versions of Palatino, of smaller x-height, are considered both more legible and elegant to many people. In the Bitstream font collection, the Palatino equivalent is called Zapf Calligraphic.
Palatino Linotype is shipped with Windows 2000 or later, and Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003.
Zapf also designed Aldus, which appeared in the D. Stempel AG catalog in 1954. Both Aldus and Palatino were Zapf’s new form of old style typefaces inspired by the Renaissance. Originally intended as the book or text weight for Zapf's Palatino font family, it was instead released as a separate family.[5]
Microsoft distributes a similar typeface, Book Antiqua (originally by Monotype), which is considered by many to be an imitation. Book Antiqua was designed as an alternative to licensing the fonts mandated by Adobe's PostScript standard. Both Book Antiqua and Arial (the alternative for Helvetica) share the original typefaces' character width, spacing and kerning properties. However, Book Antiqua resembles Palatino much more than Arial does Helvetica; indeed, the two are quite difficult to tell apart. Discernable differences include in the following characters:
In 1993, Zapf resigned from l'Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members. In the United States, the abstract design of a typeface is not protected by copyright, and can be imitated freely (unless the typeface is protected by a design patent, which is of much more limited duration and rarely applied for). Copyright protection is available for the representation of a typeface in software (a computer font), and the names of typefaces can be protected by trademark.
Microsoft has since licensed and distributes a version of Zapf's original design called Palatino Linotype in Windows 2000, XP and Vista.
URW Palladio L, another similar typeface is available, this time by URW (Unternehmensberatung Rubow Weber — from the founders' names[6] now retitled URW++). Zapf actually did work with URW on this typeface, but it could not have the same name because Linotype has a trademark on the name Palatino.
TeX Gyre Pagella is another similar typeface based on the URW Palladio L font. Pagella includes accents for European languages as well as glyphs for a few non-European languages.[7] This typeface is released in formats compatible with LaTeX as well as with modern OpenType compatible systems.
FPL Neu is yet another typeface based on URW Palladio L font. It has both text figures and lining figures. It is available both in Type 1 -format[8] and OpenType -format[9].
Zapf Renaissance Antiqua was a newer interpretation by Zapf of the same general design.
Zapf Calligraphic 801 is a version of Palatino from the Bitstream type foundry, again with Zapf's blessing.
Palatino Sans and Palatino Sans Informal won Type Directors Club Type Design Competition 2007 award under Type System / Superfamily category.[10][11]
Palatino Arabic won 2008 Type Directors Club TDC2 2008 award under Text / Type Family category.[12][13]