ITC Zemke Hand

ITC Zemke Hand evolved organically and serendipitously. While reading correspondence from Deborah Zemke during the development of the DesignFont ITC Situations, Ilene Strizver was smitten by the illustrator’s clean, bouncy handwriting style. She though it would work well with ITC Situations, but also make an accessible text face on its own. Zemke agreed to having her handwriting digitized, saying it reinforces her preference for “writing over inputting.” She feels the typeface is appropriate anytime someone wants a gestural rather formal quality, but also feels it could be used with a type font for contrast. Zemke, a freelance illustrator and children’s book author based in Columbia, Missouri, now uses the digital typeface for some of her letterwriting, but jokes that “it’s giving me a bit of an identity crisis.“