Hermann Zapf

In 1975, a journalist wrote, "Hermann Zapf is one of the most important type designers of our time”. From his first typeface designed when he was just 20 years old (Gilgengart), through more than 200 others right up to the present day, Zapf's work has achieved an unmatched popular success, while maintaining an aesthetic level which has earned him praise from professionals throughout the world.

Several of his most popular type designs, such as
Palatino, Optima, ITC Zapf Chancery Italic and are
resident on most home computers. Other fonts, such as
Michelangelo, Zapf International, and Zapf Renaissance
- among numerous others - are the mainstay of many
of the finest graphic designers of today.

Since his designs were - and still are – very popular, competitors often produced virtual clones of Zapf’s typefaces for their own customers. After seeing this happen time and again, Zapf concluded that it was neither intelligent nor profitable to continue a career designing typefaces for others to plagiarize. In the mid-1960s, Zapf stopped designing commercial typefaces.
Over a decade passed before a new typeface
of his was released. Between 1977 and 1987, Hermann Zapf worked as a professor at the School of Printing in Rochester, New York. There he was introduced to new technology and, able to learn and grow with the changes of the time, he eventually did ground-breaking work in the digitalisation of fonts for computer software, redesigning a great many fonts for digital processing.

http://www.creativepro.com/article/dot-font-hermann-zapf-at-87
http://www.art-directory.info/design/hermann-zapf-1918/
http://designers.linotype.com/hermann-zapf/
http://new.myfonts.com/person/Hermann_Zapf/
http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEP/Article/28799/