Fat Face: 100 years of Cooper Black
Tracing the history of pop culture’s favorite typeface
In 16th century Europe, roman typefaces were the first to surpass blackletter as the preferred choice for expressing emphasis in print. True bold weight roman letters didn’t appear until the 19th century, which critics quickly coined “Fat Faces” due to their beefed-up strokes and small counters. Along with Egyptians and grotesques—also commonly known as Gothics—Fat Faces would become the standard display face of advertising for nearly a century.
Until an old-style typeface proved it could be just as fat.
Type designer Oswald Bruce Cooper released Cooper Old Style (later just Cooper) in 1919. A former Chicago advertising man, Cooper was soon commissioned by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry to create something they could sell to advertisers. Thus, Cooper Black was born (and released) in 1922. Drawn as an extra bold weight of Cooper Old Style, it was advertised with the slogan: “For far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers.” To type critics it would become known as The Black Menace.
