It was like someone took an air pump to a tire and blew up that tire
June 17, 2020 1:22 PM Subscribe
Think Helvetica is too artsy-fartsy for you? Comic Sans too plebian? How about this deep dive into Cooper Black?
I'm not sure why, but to me Cooper Black is the font of the 1970s. Every time I think of it I remember various TV shows and it's basically 1979 for a few moments inside my head.
I know the font is way older and experienced an upswing starting in the 60s, but by the 80s I guess it became much less common, and it seems to be experiencing another popular era now.
posted by tclark at 2:04 PM on June 17, 2020 [21 favorites]
I know the font is way older and experienced an upswing starting in the 60s, but by the 80s I guess it became much less common, and it seems to be experiencing another popular era now.
posted by tclark at 2:04 PM on June 17, 2020 [21 favorites]
It's always been fascinating to me. It has an Old Timey quality, but when used in a contemporary way, it doesn't feel ironic or cowboy, or Victorian or Gothic or any way OLD. It feels "Amercian" to me in a way that subtly feels old—but timeless. They used the clothing store seen all over Europe "The Kooples" as an example of this and it's a great example. Reversed white on black, it feels Today, but also out-of-time. It's instantly quirky like the name of the store, but not in a Cute Quirky way.
It gets over used, but somehow never feels over used. It's an amazing typeface. Thanks for the link.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:08 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
It gets over used, but somehow never feels over used. It's an amazing typeface. Thanks for the link.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:08 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
To me, the iconic typefaces of the '80s were all about Serifs with extremely tight tracking. A bunch of serif type kerned tightly to the point of ALMOST touching, letters shoved deep underneath the leading capitals even. At least that's how it was used in mainstream advertisements.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:13 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by SoberHighland at 2:13 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure why, but to me Cooper Black is the font of the 1970s.
Because it was? I was using CB Letraset type at my high school paper in the early 70s, and tons of national ads used CB then, too. I think more than a few tv shows used CB in their titles because it displayed really well on screen.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:19 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Because it was? I was using CB Letraset type at my high school paper in the early 70s, and tons of national ads used CB then, too. I think more than a few tv shows used CB in their titles because it displayed really well on screen.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:19 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure why, but to me Cooper Black is the font of the 1970s.
For me, this is pure, uncut, raw 1970s.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
For me, this is pure, uncut, raw 1970s.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
The more I think about it, there was a period of a year or two when I was a kid and certain aesthetic-oriented parts of my brain were starting to come online, and the ubiquity of Cooper Black in my area and in advertising sort of cemented it in my brain at that specific window of time.
Cooper Black is inextricably linked with the "Yacht Rock" cultural moment in my head, even if only by accident of both being (or seeming!) ubiquitous at a time when young me was just discovering culture.
posted by tclark at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Cooper Black is inextricably linked with the "Yacht Rock" cultural moment in my head, even if only by accident of both being (or seeming!) ubiquitous at a time when young me was just discovering culture.
posted by tclark at 2:20 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
To me it is inextricably the Garfield font.
posted by ckape at 2:22 PM on June 17, 2020 [16 favorites]
posted by ckape at 2:22 PM on June 17, 2020 [16 favorites]
My brain also associates CB with the 70’s- like Thorzdad says it was all over packaging, magazines, TV ads from that time period. I fell back in love with it in architecture school as a way to fight back against Helvetica and Futura sans-serif ubiquity.
Also, Garfield cover evolution is a great way to see how to gradually destroy an iconic typeface through outlines and gradients. Can’t ruin that f tho.
posted by q*ben at 2:31 PM on June 17, 2020
Also, Garfield cover evolution is a great way to see how to gradually destroy an iconic typeface through outlines and gradients. Can’t ruin that f tho.
posted by q*ben at 2:31 PM on June 17, 2020
Here's another take from 2011's "Behind the Typeface" series, be sure to watch through to the end for a cameo from the typeface itself.
posted by jeremias at 2:37 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by jeremias at 2:37 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
In my head it's "the Pet Sounds font."
posted by BungaDunga at 2:46 PM on June 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 2:46 PM on June 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
Behind the Typeface
[Previously on Metafilter]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 2:59 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
[Previously on Metafilter]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 2:59 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bookman Swash (i.e. All In The Family) is my favorite throwback font. That combined with Copperplate was very common back in the day.
Cooper Black is inextricably linked with the "Yacht Rock" cultural moment in my head
My mom's side of the family is surname "Black", and I have a cousin on that side whose first name is "Cooper", thus I've got a cousin named Cooper Black so reading these comments outside of the font context are amusing. I can imagine that he will be eternally disappointed when Googling himself.
posted by AzraelBrown at 3:23 PM on June 17, 2020 [9 favorites]
Cooper Black is inextricably linked with the "Yacht Rock" cultural moment in my head
My mom's side of the family is surname "Black", and I have a cousin on that side whose first name is "Cooper", thus I've got a cousin named Cooper Black so reading these comments outside of the font context are amusing. I can imagine that he will be eternally disappointed when Googling himself.
posted by AzraelBrown at 3:23 PM on June 17, 2020 [9 favorites]
I found a book about Cooper Black (“Big Black & Beautiful”, by Ward Nicolaas; published in 2011 by a Dutch publisher named Bis) in an art bookshop a few years ago. It's a small volume with an appropriately padded hard cover, containing some history (the life of its designer, Oswald Cooper, who was unsurprisingly a midwesterner with a whimsical sense of humour) and a lot of examples of use (old album/book covers/film posters, photos of storefronts, a surprisingly large amount of vintage porn/erotica). Anyway, I can recommend it to Cooper Black stans.
posted by acb at 3:31 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 3:31 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I remember going to the mall to get a shop to press iron-on letters to a two-tone baseball shirt for me and my brother. The shirts had our names on them, in Cooper Black, because disco (or 70s baseball?).
It was the mid-80s. I know this because my brother wasn't born until the early 80s.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:32 PM on June 17, 2020 [14 favorites]
It was the mid-80s. I know this because my brother wasn't born until the early 80s.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:32 PM on June 17, 2020 [14 favorites]
Came in expecting this. Left slightly less amused.
posted by fuse theorem at 3:34 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by fuse theorem at 3:34 PM on June 17, 2020 [5 favorites]
Bookman Swash (i.e. All In The Family) is my favorite throwback font
Nothing says 1976-Bicentennial like Bookman Swash. I've noticed it popping up in some other period stuff recently like FX’s Mrs America.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:40 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
Nothing says 1976-Bicentennial like Bookman Swash. I've noticed it popping up in some other period stuff recently like FX’s Mrs America.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:40 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
It’s not the font, it’s how you use it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:11 PM on June 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:11 PM on June 17, 2020 [2 favorites]
Design/creative person here. I've liked the looks of Cooper Black since reading Garfield books as a youth. I have waited for years to use Cooper Black on some kind of professional project, but I'm still waiting.
posted by wormwood23 at 5:24 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by wormwood23 at 5:24 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
press iron-on letters to a two-tone baseball shirt
Oh my god, this.
posted by notsnot at 5:51 PM on June 17, 2020 [15 favorites]
Oh my god, this.
posted by notsnot at 5:51 PM on June 17, 2020 [15 favorites]
Compare the original Foxfire series of books from the 70s.
The title on the Whole Earth Catalog didn't have the exact font, but it wasn't too far from it.
It's in the same set of memories as first-wave granola, herbal essence shampoo, calico dresses and big floppy hats. You can practically hear the theme music from "The Waltons" playing on TV in the next room.
posted by gimonca at 6:19 PM on June 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
The title on the Whole Earth Catalog didn't have the exact font, but it wasn't too far from it.
It's in the same set of memories as first-wave granola, herbal essence shampoo, calico dresses and big floppy hats. You can practically hear the theme music from "The Waltons" playing on TV in the next room.
posted by gimonca at 6:19 PM on June 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
It wasn't just getting iron-on letters in the mail... We had an entire shop that was about going in and selecting things to get ironed onto shirts. Not just letters, but all kinds of decorations, some of which might be a big front design or maybe smaller elements you'd combine... It wasn't that expensive to get a custom shirt and I had many growing up in that era. I'd say from maybe 1979 or so I first remember it starting? Something like that.
posted by hippybear at 6:21 PM on June 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 6:21 PM on June 17, 2020 [4 favorites]
Paperback book titles in Bookman Swash seem like they were always preceded by a smaller all-caps line like #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Just so you know, while you're standing in the check-out line at Kroger and the books are right there, next to the Life Savers and early issues of People magazine.
posted by gimonca at 6:24 PM on June 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 6:24 PM on June 17, 2020 [6 favorites]
I think more than a few tv shows used CB in their titles because it displayed really well on screen.
Also, CB radios were very popular for a couple of years there. There was that show with the chimp, CB and the Bear, for example.
Wait, what?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:44 PM on June 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
Also, CB radios were very popular for a couple of years there. There was that show with the chimp, CB and the Bear, for example.
Wait, what?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:44 PM on June 17, 2020 [10 favorites]
Paperback book titles in Bookman Swash seem like they were always preceded by a smaller all-caps line like #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
Yes! Recent example: That smaller, all-caps trumpeting on the paperback edition of Trick Mirror looks exactly right, while the unbroken line of last year's original hardback looks like a rush job. (Though these covers use different super-'70s-special typeface, maybe Hawthorn?)
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:35 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yes! Recent example: That smaller, all-caps trumpeting on the paperback edition of Trick Mirror looks exactly right, while the unbroken line of last year's original hardback looks like a rush job. (Though these covers use different super-'70s-special typeface, maybe Hawthorn?)
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:35 PM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm with tclark: Cooper Black just bleeds and sweats 1970s to me. I think because I'm from the eighties and it was the font of choice for strip-mall shops with unmaintained signage.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:32 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:32 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]
I could have sworn it was also used for Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, but it seems I was wrong.
posted by Mchelly at 6:06 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 6:06 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Mchelly, not without a twist of irony, the "Gee, your hair" font is called Frankfurter.
posted by zadcat at 7:29 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by zadcat at 7:29 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Iris Gambol: "Trick Mirror" is actually a recent font, Roslindale, inspired by 1970s stalwarts like Trooper and Hawthorn.
posted by zadcat at 7:37 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by zadcat at 7:37 AM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Cooper Black is so common that I really don’t associate it with a particular time or place. For me the fonts that take me back to the 1970s are based on MICR E-13B.
posted by TedW at 7:48 AM on June 18, 2020
posted by TedW at 7:48 AM on June 18, 2020
Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Dunkin' Donuts
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:18 AM on June 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Dunkin' Donuts
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:18 AM on June 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
I could have sworn it was also used for Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific, but it seems I was wrong.
Wow, talk about awkward AND creepy.
posted by slogger at 11:21 AM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wow, talk about awkward AND creepy.
posted by slogger at 11:21 AM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Dunkin' Donuts
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Real People
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:22 AM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Dunkin' Donuts
Gee Your Hair Smells Like Real People
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:22 AM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]
Iris Gambol: "Paperback book titles in Bookman Swash seem like they were always preceded by a smaller all-caps line like #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
Yes! Recent example: That smaller, all-caps trumpeting on the paperback edition of Trick Mirror looks exactly right, while the unbroken line of last year's original hardback looks like a rush job. (Though these covers use different super-'70s-special typeface, maybe Hawthorn?)"
This is the ur book in that mode.
posted by chavenet at 11:53 AM on June 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yes! Recent example: That smaller, all-caps trumpeting on the paperback edition of Trick Mirror looks exactly right, while the unbroken line of last year's original hardback looks like a rush job. (Though these covers use different super-'70s-special typeface, maybe Hawthorn?)"
This is the ur book in that mode.
posted by chavenet at 11:53 AM on June 18, 2020 [3 favorites]
Paperback book titles in Bookman Swash seem like they were always preceded by a smaller all-caps line like #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
Portnoy's Complaint is the primary example of this.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:03 PM on June 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
Portnoy's Complaint is the primary example of this.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:03 PM on June 18, 2020 [4 favorites]
It's in the same set of memories as first-wave granola, herbal essence shampoo, calico dresses and big floppy hats. You can practically hear the theme music from "The Waltons" playing on TV in the next room.
gimonca, you captured perfectly what was in my head about the 1970's aesthetic and feel. I literally couldn't just Favorite your comment, so I came in to give you extra love.
Also, because I was a 1970's/1980's child and it was EVERYWHERE in that era, I don't think of Cooper Black as being cool or slick in any way. It was simply what was available (choice of one when you're at the fabric store looking for iron-on letters for t-shirts, as mentioned above.)
I literally ironed-on my own set of Cooper Black letters in 4th grade!
It's rounded fat-tire look is definitely of its time, for me. So it's fascinating to hear how some (younger) people love the look of it, people who didn't grow up with it everywhere.
I just realized that my love for serif'd fonts like Garamond and Jenson are a reaction to all that Cooper Black of my childhood. No curves for me, thanks.
posted by honey badger at 6:31 AM on June 19, 2020 [5 favorites]
gimonca, you captured perfectly what was in my head about the 1970's aesthetic and feel. I literally couldn't just Favorite your comment, so I came in to give you extra love.
Also, because I was a 1970's/1980's child and it was EVERYWHERE in that era, I don't think of Cooper Black as being cool or slick in any way. It was simply what was available (choice of one when you're at the fabric store looking for iron-on letters for t-shirts, as mentioned above.)
I literally ironed-on my own set of Cooper Black letters in 4th grade!
It's rounded fat-tire look is definitely of its time, for me. So it's fascinating to hear how some (younger) people love the look of it, people who didn't grow up with it everywhere.
I just realized that my love for serif'd fonts like Garamond and Jenson are a reaction to all that Cooper Black of my childhood. No curves for me, thanks.
posted by honey badger at 6:31 AM on June 19, 2020 [5 favorites]
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Anyway, I loves, loves, loves me some Cooper Black. It’s just so fun and unforgiving to work with, and you can kern it to hell and back and it just freaking works. And, yeah, that O is the key. It adds a neat jauntiness to the face that makes anything you do with it friendly. CB is just a happy-making typeface.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:41 PM on June 17, 2020 [18 favorites]