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 typeface used on the cover of Pet Sounds, which is widely regarded as one of the most influential albums ever released.

Cooper Hilite

It is a variant with a line along carved at the edges of Cooper Black.

Cooper Black Italic

It is an italic variant, with swash characters as alternate characters.

Digitized version with swashes was first released by Wordshape as Cooper Black Italic Swash, designed by Ian Lynam Design. Wordshape's version also included an alternate swash designs.

Cooper Black Condensed

It is a condensed variant, described by Cooper as 'condensed but not squeezed'. The condensed font is 20% lighter than the regular Cooper Black.

Variants

Goudy Heavyface, Ludlow Black and Pabst Extra Bold were designed in response to Cooper Black.

Soap, designed by Ray Larabie of Typodermic, is a uni-case variant based on Cooper Black.

See also

• Samples of display typefaces

References

• Allan Haley. Typographic Milestones. John Wiley and Sons: September 1992. ISBN 978-0-471-28894-7.
• Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
• Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
• Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
• Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.

External links

• Short overview
• Cooper Black font information (Microsoft typography)
• Type Gallery - Cooper Black
• Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black (satirical, but very informative video about Cooper Black by Cheshire Dave)
• Ian Lynam Design: Cooper Black Swash Italic
• Wordshape: Cooper Black Swash Italic
• Typophile: Cooper Black Italic swash alternates?
• Book of American Types: Cooper Hilite