Zapfest got off to a roaring start last weekend, with a well-attended opening to the exhibition on Saturday and a packed presentation by Hermann and Gudrun Zapf on Sunday, both at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Zapfest banners flew on light poles outside the library, which is directly across the huge Civic Center plaza from the domed, ornately gilded City Hall, and Sunday, September 2, 2001, was officially declared Hermann & Gudrun Zapf Day in San Francisco, by proclamation of Mayor Willie Brown. (His Willieness, as he's known to locals both affectionately and otherwise, did not attend or open the festivities himself. We all know that proclamations of official "days" are usually noticed only by those immediately affected, but for those of us familiar with this particular area of abstruse craft and knowledge, there could be no official honor more well deserved.)

Zapfest runs through the end of October at the San Francisco Public Library.

The official title of Zapfest is "Calligraphic Type Design in the Digital Age: An Exhibition in Honor of the Contributions of Hermann and Gudrun Zapf." The heart of the exhibit is the work on display -- calligraphy, typefaces, and working drawings that bridge the gap between the two -- but a series of lectures will complement and punctuate the exhibit throughout its two-month run.

Typefaces at an Exhibition
The exhibition is a large one, on display until the end of October in the Skylight Gallery on the top floor of the main library. In addition to several cases each showing the work of both Hermann Zapf and Gudrun Zapf von Hesse, there are fourteen more cases, each displaying the work of another calligraphic type designer. Several of the other designers, as well as the Zapfs, were there for the opening reception on Saturday.

The exhibit features the work of both Hermann Zapf and Gudrun Zapf von Hesse.

Preparations for the opening were going on right up to the last minute. Linnea Lundquist was the spearhead and coordinator of the whole affair, and Susie Taylor of the library's Rare Book department did a masterful and creative job of presenting the work itself in its many glass-topped cases. Hermann Zapf had sent detailed sketches of how his and Gudrun's cases should be laid out (leaving very little space for labels inside the cases to identify the items), and Susie had made similar layouts for the other cases; in the end, though, as Susie said, you have to do it by eye. She used brackets and supports to raise certain items a little bit or tilt them slightly to give the displays a three-dimensionality they would otherwise lack, and she carefully arranged the cases themselves according to the dominant colors and the style of typefaces displayed within them. The effect was dynamic and elegant, and even during the crowded reception there were plenty of people peering happily at the work on display.

The reception itself, with catered munchies in the gallery and wine on the sunlit patio outside, brought visitors from Texas, New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles, among those I knew or discovered myself.