No. 2 The Book of Oz Cooper: An Appreciation
This is a festschrift (a book honoring a respected person) published in 1949, nine years after the death of Oswald Cooper, the famed American type designer who lived and worked in Chicago. It is a wonderful blend of personal reminiscences, biography and many samples of Cooper’s elegant typefaces and calligraphic compositions. He was known for his Cooper Black, a very bold font that is still widely used, and represented in our NBLA shop in wood type and metal. It was a commercial success in his time and he said about it: “…for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers.” Like W.A. Dwiggins or his mentor, F.W. Goudy, Oz Cooper was a multi-talented designer with distinctive wit…and the admiration of his contemporaries is moving to read.
