Cooper Black is an ultra-bold serif

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands ...

intended for display use that was designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper and released by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry in 1922. The typeface was drawn as an extra-bold weight of Cooper's "Cooper Old Style" family. It rapidly became a standard typeface and was licensed by

American Type Founders American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typography,'' Century Comp ...

and also copied by many other manufacturers of printing systems. Its use in pop culture increased worldwide since 1966, when the Beach Boys used it for the cover artwork of their album ''

Pet Sounds ''Pet Sounds'' is the 11th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on May 16, 1966, by Capitol Records. It was initially met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response in the United States, peaking at number 10 on the ...

''. It was then featured in the Doors’ ''

L.A. Woman ''L.A. Woman'' is the sixth studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on April 19, 1971, by Elektra Records. It is the last to feature lead singer Jim Morrison during his lifetime due to his death three months after the albu ...

'' (1971) and David Bowie’s '' Ziggy Stardust'' (1972), and in the opening credits of ''

The Bob Newhart Show ''The Bob Newhart Show'' is an American sitcom television series produced by MTM Enterprises that aired on CBS from September 16, 1972, to April 1, 1978, with a total of 142 half-hour episodes over six seasons. Comedian Bob Newhart portrays a ...

'', ''

Diff'rent Strokes ''Diff'rent Strokes'' is an American television sitcom, which aired on NBC from November 3, 1978, to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985, to March 7, 1986. The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson ...

'', ''

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis (cartoonist), Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide Print syndication, syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the t ...

'', ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker (auth ...

'', '' Enos'', ''

The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ''The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on the '' Winnie-the-Pooh'' books by authors A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, ''The New Adventures'' was the ...

'', ''

Everybody Hates Chris ''Everybody Hates Chris'' is an American television semi-autobiographical sitcom that is inspired by the memories of the teenage years of comedian Chris Rock. The show is set from 1982 to 1987, although Rock himself was actually a teenager from ...

'' and other shows. The font is used for the ''Disney Sing-Along Songs'' from the intro.Lewis, Amanda
Cooper Black: The Story Behind Louie's Typeface
', laweekly.com, August 6, 2012 quote: "didn't truly hit the world over the head until it graced the cover of the Beach Boys' classic 1966 album, Pet Sounds. For the next decade Cooper Black slowly asserted pop culture supremacy, making notable appearances on The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, 1976's remake of King Kong, The Sting, The Doors' L.A. Woman, “Garfield,” Tootsie Rolls, National Lampoon magazine, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, M*A*S*H and Diff'rent Strokes, along with less notable appearances on an unbelievable number of signs, packages, labels, T-shirts and advertisements. (..) has become shorthand for late-'60s/early-'70s nostalgia, as in The Black Keys' “Brothers” or Wet Hot American Summer" As a result, Cooper Black has become emblematic of late-1960s/early-1970s style. It is also known in railroading for its association with the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and S ...

"Yellowbonnet" paint scheme, also dating to the early 1960s, which had "Santa Fe" in large yellow letters on locomotive sides. Cooper Black followed on from Cooper's career as a

lettering Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to d ...

artist in Chicago and the Midwest of America in the 1920s. Cooper Black was advertised as being "for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers", as well as "the Black Menace" by detractors. While very bold, Cooper Black is based on traditional "old-style" serif lettering, rather than the hard-edged "fat face" fonts popular in the nineteenth century, giving it a soft, 'muddy' appearance, with relatively low contrast between thick and thin strokes.

Cooper Hilite

Cooper Hilite is a version of Cooper Black originally designed by painting white relief impressions into a printed proof of Cooper Black. It has been digitized by ParaType and Wordshape.

Imitations and variants

Cooper Black was immediately popular and spawned imitations, including Goudy Heavy Face from

Frederic Goudy Frederic William Goudy (, March 8, 1865 – May 11, 1947) was an American printer, artist and type designer whose typefaces include Copperplate Gothic, Goudy Old Style and Kennerley. He was one of the most prolific of American type designers and ...

, Ludlow Black and Pabst Extra Bold. Cooper Black remains popular: the editors of the typography discussion website ''Fonts in Use'' report more submissions of its use than any other face that is not a sans-serif, although outnumbered by

Times New Roman Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was commissioned by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype Imaging, Monotype, in ...

once its many variants are added up. Many unusual versions of Cooper were created in the

phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing ( digital typesetting). T ...

period of the 1960s and 1970s, a period of explosion in production of display faces. These included "Ziptop Cooper Black" from Photo Lettering Inc., a version with the top bolder than the bottom, and other distorted variants. Many digitisations of Cooper Black exist from companies including Bitstream, Adobe and others. Soap, designed by

Ray Larabie Raymond Larabie (born 1970) is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns Typodermic Fonts, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts. Biography and career Larabie was born in Ottawa, ...

of Typodermic, is a uni-case variant. A version from

URW URW may refer to: * Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield * Union of Russian Workers * UnReal World, survival video game * Unrestricted Warfare, military strategy * Urawa Station, JR East station code *URW++ URW Type Foundry GmbH (formerly URW++ Design & D ...

, which does not include an italic, is bundled with many

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

products. Cooper Old Style has been digitised by URW. Miles Newlyn designed the New Kansas typeface, based on the Cooper Black typeface.

Gallery

Cooper Hilite (8294409652).jpg, A specimen sheet of Cooper Hilite. Cooper Old Style sample image.png, Cooper Black compared to Cooper's earlier Cooper Old Style. This was a quirky variation on the old-style serif model, similar to Cooper's lettering and predominantly intended for display and advertising use. Goudy Heavy sample.jpg, Goudy Heavy, a metal-type competitor commissioned by Monotype from Cooper's former lettering teacher,

References

External links

Fonts in Use

"Why this font is everywhere"
on ''Vox'' Display typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1922 Letterpress typefaces Photocomposition typefaces Digital typefaces Art Nouveau typefaces Art Deco

Cooper Hilite

Imitations and variants

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading

External links