[a] Palatino is optimised for legitibility with open counters, balanced proportions, moderate stroke contrast and flared serifs.

[12][13] Palatino rapidly became popular for book body text use, overshadowing the narrower and lighter Aldus, which Zapf had designed for this role.

[13][15] Linotype licensed Palatino to Adobe and Apple who incorporated it into the PostScript digital printing technology as a standard font.

Zapf's friend Alexander Lawson wrote that "the open counters that make Palatino such a legible letter were provided to overcome a then current printing problem in Germany, poor-quality paper.

The weight of the type was also thickened beyond that of a normal roman in order to adapt to the lithographic and gravure printing processes of that period.

"[13][16] Due to Palatino's increasing popularity in body text, multiple versions have been released for the changing technologies of handsetting, hot metal typesetting, phototypesetting and digital font design.

Compared to Palatino, released some years earlier, it has a more condensed design lighter in colour, more graceful and refined and better suited to the high average quality of book printing.

It appeared in the D. Stempel AG catalog in 1954 and Zapf used it to set his own Manuale Typographicum, a history of letter design.

The decision annoyed Zapf (who preferred the name "Palatino Book") since it bears little direct resemblance to Aldus's typefaces.

The design has a 'U' with a foot serif at bottom right, a 'double-V'-style 'W' with four top terminals and a 'palm Y' similar to that on Palatino, inspired by the Greek letter upsilon.

[32] Zapf was very interested in the quality of Italian art and lettering, and his sketches of stonecarving in Florence also inspired the humanist sans-serif Optima.

[39][38] According to Linotype the currently available digitisation is based on the versions prepared by Scangraphic for display use, with tight spacing and striking contrasts in stroke weight.

A version marketed under the name “Zapf Renaissance Antiqua SB” contains these same high-contrast letterforms, but with looser spacing for running text.

Linotype released a more complex redesign named Palatino nova, together with digitisations of some of Zapf's other Renaissance-inspired designs and Aldus.

It incorporates extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic characters, as well as currency signs, subscripts and superscripts, and fractions.

Reviewing it for Typographica on release, font designer Hrant Papazian commented:[53] The confluence of competence, freedom and kiai... evident in Palatino Sans is breathtaking.

The sober organicity, the bravado of the raised 'r', the confident flair of the italic; all done before, but never in such a usable, contemporary whole.Palatino Sans Informal incorporates informal characteristics to the Palatino Sans, such as asymmetrical A, K, N, W, X, Y, w. It is a family designed by Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine and Hermann Zapf.

[57] As one of the most iconic typefaces of the twentieth century, derivative designs based on Palatino were rapidly developed, taking advantage of the lack of practical copyright and the easy copying possible in the phototypesetting font market of the 1960s and 70s onwards.

[66][67] Palladio, however, lacks the subtle stroke modulation and rounded corners which can be found for example in Palatino Linotype.

[58][69] Book Antiqua resembles Palatino extremely closely and is almost indistinguishable from the original apart from a few detail differences.

The genre, inspired by Italian traditions of handwriting and calligraphy, has been a dominant influence on most typefaces and lettering created in the Western world since the Renaissance.