David Optik logo (1993)

Optik David is an optician established in Hard, Austria in 1985. In 1993, local designer Othmar Motter was commissioned to design a logo for the family business.

Over his long career, Motter created countless logos, wordmarks and symbols, often from scratch, sometimes using his own typefaces, and occasionally relying on existing letterforms designed by others. The out-of-focus caps shown here were not rasterized by Motter. Instead, he took them directly from Process, a novelty face issued by Letraset as a winner in their International Typeface Competition in 1973. Designer John Reid from Australia mentions that his typeface “arose from the idea to intuitively interpret a complete fount as if it were photo processed.” It’s not clear if the logo ever was put to use. The currently used logo was again provided by Motter Design, now run by Othmar’s sons Peter and Siegmund.

The image is reproduced with kind permission of Triest Verlag. Earlier this year, Triest has published the long-awaited Motter biography, edited and designed by Elias Riedmann and titled Othmar Motter – Meister der Extrabold (“Master of the Extrabold”).