Malcolm Gladwell says that “talent is the desire to practice”, which I agree with, and after watching this I’m fairly certian Zapf probably spent close to 10,000 hours practicing.
The Art of Hermann Zapf from Johnny Dib on Vimeo.
Besides watching a masters hand at work, it’s enlightening to learn he was self taught and diligent at practice. From the article…
Mr. Zapf is a self taught typeface designer. It was during an exhibition in 1935 in honor of Rudolf Koch, when he got interested in calligraphy, so he purchased two books which introduced him to the art of calligraphy. Later he developed his craft with intensive periods of study at the Nuremberg City Library.
Cribbed from Parachute Fonts.
