D. Stempel

Type foundry in Frankfurt where Hermann Zapf designed Palatino (1950) and Optima.

David Stempel founded the type foundry in Frankfurt, and it became one of Germany's largest makers of type and of matrices for typesetting machines. The foundry worked closely with Linotype.

Hermann Zapf drew Palatino and Optima for Stempel, and the foundry bought Klingspor in 1956. It also issued Helvetica in a German edition. Stempel ceased in the 1980s, and its archive is in Darmstadt.

Stempel’s name in specimens.

• Typography
• Helvetica