Cooper Black & Cooper Black Italic

Cooper Black, the most famous and successful of Oswald Cooper’s type designs, was released in 1920, following a year of development fleshing out the weight of the typeface and filling out the full character set. Cooper redrew the lowercase characters multiple times, toying with the rounded forms of the “m” and “n” and engaged in a lively debate with Richard N. McArthur of Barnhart Brohers & Spindler over the final form as McArthur requested that the typeface be drawn bolder and bolder. Cooper famously said the face was "for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers", and the public agreed. Sales of Cooper Black were voluminous, and Barnhart Brothers and Spindler had a difficult time keeping up with the demand for the typeface. Conservative typographers were critical of Cooper Black, though it was overwhelmingly popular, helping to shape the American advertising landscape through the 1920s and 1930s.

1926 saw the release of Cooper Black Italic. During the design process, Cooper relentlessly experimented with the forms of the letters, creating multiple options for each letterform. It includes a full uppercase, lowercase, figure, and punctuation character set, Response to Cooper Black Italic was overwhelmingly positive and the typeface sold very well. These two typefaces are the result of researching Cooper’s original drawings and series of engraved proofs for both typefaces. The typefaces include the original ligatures, and a range of punctuation and diacritics, et al, that fill out a full character set. The typeface have been lovingly kerned for the smoothest result in text setting.

This font updates and complements the fun, friendly Cooper Black Swash Italic, an old Chicago-style display typeface. It is great for retro designs and forward-thinking contemporary graphic design. Both are included in OpenType and TrueType versions - 2 classics for $20!