Oswald Bruce Cooper (1879-1940)
Oz Cooper was born in Ohio and left school at 17. His goal was to become a famous illustrator. He was a correspondent student at the School of Illustration in Chicago. He later enrolled there and realized that he was "no good at drawing pictures".
He signed up for lettering class with Goudy and there found his metier. He joined up with a partner Fred Bertsch and they set up the design firm Bertsch & Cooper in Chicago. There he created Cooper Black, a superbold typeface that was an immediate success. It became one of the most popular typefaces to be released in America at that time and had a great influence on the style of the 1920s and 30s. His other typefaces include Cooper Old Style, Cooper Fullface, and Cooper Initials.
"Cooper Black - for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers."
[NOM, photo Luc Devroye]
Fonts designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper
