Comments on: Behind The Typeface Presents: Cooper Black.

Behind The Typeface Presents: Cooper Black.

youhas — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:54:36 -0800

Behind The Typeface Presents: Cooper Black. The gripping saga of one typeface's trials and tribulations, following its path from the dizzying heights of stardom to the brink of self-destruction and back again. (Flash 5, approx. 3MB.)

By: jackiemcghee

jackiemcghee — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 03:25:49 -0800

That was fantastic. Never liked Cooper Black much (or any face with rounded serifs, just not my taste) but I could watch that over again. In fact I think I will. Excellent link.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 03:42:39 -0800

that was pretty neat. some that aren't put off by the flash might be put off by the size; i have no real way of knowing, but fwiw, it didn't feel like 3mb.

By: Taken Outtacontext

Taken Outtacontext — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:04:58 -0800

Great parody from a very good writer! Congrats Chesh!

By: Stuart_R

Stuart_R — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:08:38 -0800

That was great! I'll put it on the shelf next to my copy of The Scourge of Arial. Anyone else have any good Typography history / theory links?

By: i_cola

i_cola — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:21:06 -0800

Well worth the d/l...an excellent use of flash. I'm praying that DIN, a typeface I have loved & used since 1984, doesn't go the same way as Cooper did thru over (& bad) use. I blame that Jason Kottke fellow ;-) Stuart_R: Is there anything similar entitled 'The Evil that is Comic Sans'?

By: Stuart_R

Stuart_R — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:26:50 -0800

It's "groovy" baby! - A note from Vincent Connare, Comic Sans' designer.

By: Su

Su — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:43:04 -0800

Stuart_R: If you haven't visited already, go dig through the Typographica archives. Also, Typographer.com.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:57:37 -0800

The Overused Font Hall of Fame, which seems smaller than it used to be, and a Suck Column. Yet the road away from Helvetica is paved with good intentions.... Cooper rules. I have a Cooper-based version of my weblog logo that I never used (I went with Rockwell instead). I'd been thinking Oz Black might be a good alternative. FWIW, I'd love to see more of these "Behind the Typeface" episodes. I'm sure they're a lot of work, though.

By: TacoConsumer

TacoConsumer — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 07:22:22 -0800

Garamond! Gill Sans! Helvetica! Futura! I must know their stories!!!

By: i_cola

i_cola — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 07:41:07 -0800

Stuart_R: Now I hate it even more... ;-)

By: chino

chino — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 08:26:12 -0800

I believe that there used to be an San Francisco social organization that was known as "Art Directors United Against Helvetica Bold Condensed." They used to have a bowling tournament. And I always wanted to start a funk band made up entirely of art directors, which would be known as the "Zapf Chancery All-Caps." This has not yet come to pass.

By: SiW

SiW — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 08:34:21 -0800

I loved this, and he fit it to the standard Behind the Music format - initial stardom, derailment, rejuvenation. I used to really hate Cooper Black with a passion, but now that I find it kind of comforting. But I'll always be a Futura man.

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:00:32 -0800

Nothing screams bad design to me more than the use of Comic Sans. Brush Script runs a close second (unless it's for a diner menu). My heart belongs to Adobe Garamond.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:05:41 -0800

Anyone else have any good Typography history / theory links? Counterspace is an excellent Flash resource. I also like DIN, and I Gill Sans used to be my favorite, but now I'm all about Frutiger.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:36:20 -0800

I'm in love with Korinna.

By: i_cola

i_cola — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:00:38 -0800

kirkaracha: I hope you pronounce it 'FRUH-TIGGER' and not 'FROO-TIGGER' like far too many people seem to...and funnily enough, I've just finished flushing Frutiger out of all of my mags in favour of DIN FFF: Aaaaargh! Ed Benguiat typefaces! The horror! More FPPs about typography! Yay! Damn, the screech key on my Mac just broke thru overuse...

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:24:55 -0800

I love typography, and I enjoyed that more than any VH1 Behind the Music I've ever seen.

By: O9scar

O9scar — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:30:04 -0800

That art director's group was against Futura Extra Bold Condensed, which most people would recognize as the Absolut font.

By: chino

chino — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:11:41 -0800

Thanks, O9scar. Funny how typefaces can actually give one shudders of disgust.

By: substrate

substrate — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:29:00 -0800

Here's a random question for anybody knowledge about typography. I'd like to write a perl script that looks at the longest line in a file and determines what font size for a given font will allow an entire line of text to fit on one line of the page. I've screwed around a bit and have empirically determined this by spamming the laser printer, but there's got to be a better way of doing this with PostScript fonts.

By: Stuart_R

Stuart_R — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:34:13 -0800

I'm not an expert, but I think that if the only information the perl script had was the number of characters in a line it would only work with monotype fonts.

By: lotsofno

lotsofno — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 11:41:53 -0800

pfft, you can keep your fancy pantsy typefaces... i'm keepin' it real with verdana and georgia.

By: substrate

substrate — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:28:26 -0800

Well, it'd also have access to the text of the longest line (which might not really be the longest one, but to a first approximation would be close enough). More generally, how would I determine how much space an "w" or an "i" would take in a given font?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:38:21 -0800

Sorry, cola, but I find Korinna eminently readable, and exceedingly versatile.

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 13:28:07 -0800

i've been hooked on Century Gothic lately....just want to use it on everything.

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:09:35 -0800

I'm a big fan of this elegant font called Berolina.

By: kindall

kindall — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:44:20 -0800

how would I determine how much space an "w" or an "i" would take in a given font? You look inside the font, of course. To do this you have to have a pretty decent amount of knowledge of the font file format. It's easier to let the OS do it; GUI-based operating systems have a library routine you can call to find out how wide a line of text is in pixels using a given font.

By: DragonBoy

DragonBoy — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:21:32 -0800

Substrate, You'll need to pull the font metrics. If you are on a Mac then you are in luck. Apple has a large collection of free font tools on their site that type designers have been using for years. You might also check with Letterror, they have some of the best font tool around, including RoboFog - a professional type design tool that is fully python scriptable.

By: metrocake

metrocake — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 20:17:40 -0800

Emigre's Base Nine is absolutely beautiful, and so is their Mrs. Eaves. I love Hoefler's "Requiem," as well. :)

By: substrate

substrate — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 20:46:22 -0800

DragonBoy, thanks much. I'm not on a Mac (yet... getting a G4 of some sort when I'm back from vacation) but I think i can figure out how to pull things out now.

By: basilwhite

basilwhite — Tue, 30 Jul 2002 12:26:51 -0800

Cooper Tires uses Cooper Black for their typeface. What a great inside joke.