About Cooper Black
Cooper Black is a heavily weighted, old style serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1921 and released by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry in 1922. The typeface is drawn as an extra bold weight of Cooper Old Style. Though not based on a single historic model it exhibits influences of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and the Machine Age. Cooper Black is a heavier version of Cooper Old Style which enjoyed particular popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, and also became somewhat iconic of the 1970s. The Cooper Old Style family was advertised as being for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers. It is notable for being a typeface used on the cover of Pet Sounds, which is widely regarded as one of the most influential albums ever released.
Oswald Bruce Cooper
Oswald Bruce Cooper (1879-04-13, Mount Gilead, Ohio - 1940-12-17) was an American typographer, calligrapher, teacher, and graphic designer. He studied at Chicago's Frank Holme School of Illustration, first as a correspondence student, then in person, with an interest in illustration. Feeling that this was not his forte, he pursued design, and after taking a lettering class from Frederic Goudy, pursued a career in type and design. In time he became Director of the Correspondence School of Typography for the Holme School. When the school closed due to financial difficulties, Cooper took it on himself to provide correspondence education to prepaid students. With Fred Bertsch he formed the design firm of Bertch & Cooper after 1904, providing ad campaigns for such accounts as the Packard Motor Car Company and Anheuser-Busch Breweries, with Cooper providing distinctive hand lettering and sometimes the copy writing as well. In 1914 the firm became a full-service type shop. Cooper's anonymous hand-lettering for Packard ads formed the basis of the Packard font prepared at the direction of Morris Fuller Benton of American Type Founders.
Typographic design
Oswald began to design a type family when Barnhart Brothers & Spindler (BB&S) Type Foundry approached Cooper with a proposal to design a complete type family based on his lettering. Originally, Cooper had doubts over the deal, but Fred Bertsch saw it as opportunity to gain exposure for Cooper's work and to further promote the design studio, so the deal was made. The project began with the basic roman version of the family. The font called Cooper was completed in 1918, was made on old style letter forms, but both designer and foundry did not call it Cooper Oldstyle, with designer believed it is not a true old style design, but a caricature of it. Cooper was release in only a few point sizes, as advertising display font. The type received moderate success. A heavyweight version called Cooper Black was designed next, originally as a 120-point font. Called by designer as a font "for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers," it was hated by conservative typographer, but was popular among graphic designers, to the point that the foundry had problem of making enough fonts.
An italic variant for Cooper was released in 1924, but by then the original font was called Cooper Oldstyle.
In 1925, BB&S released Cooper Hilite, which was made by carving a line along the edges of Cooper Black.
Following Cooper Hilite, Cooper Black Italic was released in 1926. Like Cooper Oldstyle Italic, it became a bestseller for BB&S. In Cooper Oldstyle Italic, the designer also added swash characters. In the same year, Cooper Black Condensed was released, which the designer described it as 'condensed but not squeezed'. The condensed font is 20% lighter than the regular Cooper Black.
Cooper Fullface was the last Oswald's font released by BB&S before the foundry was closed in 1929. Under pressure from BB&S, Oswald also created a series of initial letters (as Cooper Initials), and a group called Christmas ornaments.
AFT years
After American Type Founders had taken over BB&S and Cooper Fullface, it was renamed to 'Cooper Modern'. The design was based on Bodoni, but with rounded serifs, freehand stems, and suggestion of curve in most lines. An italic version was planned, but it had not been completed before ATF acquisition, and the new foundry did not produce the italic fonts. During Oswald's ATF years, he created Boul Mich (named after Michigan Boulevard in Chicago) and Broadway. In addition, Oswald also given the task of reworking Dietz Text from August Dietz's original drawings.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
65
47£4.0013
66
50£4.005
67
56£4.004
68
60£4.007
69
62£4.0013
70
66£4.008
71
70£4.005
72
74£4.005
73
78£4.0012
74
82£4.004
75
92£4.006
76
96£4.007
77
101£4.004
78
105£4.007
79
110£4.0010
80
114£4.008
81
121£4.004
82
126£4.007
83
130£4.007
84
135£4.009
85
140£4.009
86
146£4.009
87
148£4.005
88
150£4.007
89
152£4.002
90
154£4.003
97
49£4.007
98
53£4.007
99
59£4.004
100
61£4.003
101
64£4.0011
102
68£4.004
103
71£4.006
104
76£4.004
105
80£4.006
106
88£4.005
107
93£4.006
108
98£4.00-2
109
103£4.00-1
110
107£4.000
111
112£4.002
112
116£4.004
113
123£4.006
114
128£4.003
115
132£4.002
116
137£4.001
117
143£4.0014
118
147£4.009
119
149£4.0011
120
151£4.008
121
153£4.004
122
155£4.007
38
54£4.004
48
28£4.0026
49
29£4.0017
50
30£4.008
51
32£4.009
52
35£4.005
53
33£4.0010
54
37£4.000
55
40£4.002
56
42£4.003
57
44£4.0010
163
119£4.000