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The 1963 Buick

Contributed by Stephen Coles on May 12th, 2017. Artwork published in .
The 1963 Buick 1
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.

Optima’s ‘1’ appears to be modified a bit, the entry stroke is longer than I know it.

The 1963 Buick 2
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 3
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 4
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 5
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 6
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 7
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 8
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 9
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 10
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.
The 1963 Buick 11
Source: www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au License: All Rights Reserved.

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  • Optima

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4 Comments on “The 1963 Buick

  1. This looks like the default form from the original metal version. At some point in history, Optima’s ‘1’ got a nose job. The comparison below shows Stempel’s foundry version, the digitization by Linotype/Adobe, and, for the sake of completeness, Optima nova.

    The middle version — which has been bundled with Mac OS for years — unfortunately pairs the narrowed glyph with tabular spacing. This inevitably leads to gappy numbers.

  2. Hermann Zapf is the designer.

  3. Indeed Zapf is the designer of Optima. The note “Designers/Agencies: unknown” in the sidebar refers to this Buick catalog, though, not to the typeface. Typeface designers are listed on the typeface pages.

  4. Briar Levit says:
    Jun 13th, 2019 12:50 am

    Thanks for the comparison, Florian. I think I like the Linotype/Adobe version best, despite the spacing issue. Very helpful!

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