It was 1935 when Zapf began his course to become one of the most important type designers and calligraphers of the century. Hermann Zapf was born around the end of World War I, famine had struck the country, and his mother had just enough money to send him to school in 1925. While at school, Zapf preferred technical subjects. But even though he was so young, Zapf was already taking up typing, exchanging secret alphabets with messages that only he and his brother could read. Once he graduated he would have liked to pursue a career as an electrical engineer but was unable to attend technical institute. he intended to participate due to the new political form of government in office. So he went to do an apprenticeship with some of his teachers, but they noticed the new political difficulties and suggested that he become a lithographer due to his skill in drawing. He was continually rejected in interviews based on his political answers to questions asked of him. But then the last company didn't ask any of these questions, so he was hired as a retoucher, since they didn't need an apprentice lithographer. Zapf first became interested in lettering after attending an exhibition honoring a printer. Zapf bought a couple of books there to learn calligraphy and studied examples of calligraphy in the city library. Soon, his expertise in calligraphy was recognized at work and his retouching moved to retouching letters. After his apprenticeship there, he worked in a company as a printer and wrote song books. Then, in 1938, he designed a fraktur type for them called Gilgengart, which was his first printed typeface. During the war, Zapf was too distracted and clumsy to fight, so he was sent to Jüterbog to train as a cartographer. In the cartography unit, Zapf drew maps of Spain. Zapf was happy to work in the mapping department because his eyesight was excellent. He didn't need a magnifying glass to write 1 millimeter letters. A skill that perhaps saved him from being drafted into the army. After the end of the war, in 1946 he began teaching calligraphy in Nuremberg. Subsequently he received a job offer from the Stempel company which offered him a prominent position as artistic director of the company. He also taught calligraphy classes at the Arts and Crafts School in Offenbach there he met his wife, who was also a typography teacher there.