Our first Font Play - Coolsville Regular

[angelize]

I know it's not the first Friday of the month but to celebrate our brand new forum we are are going to start off our first Font Play early! After this they will be posted on the first Friday of every month! Check out what is a font play and how do I play too for rules and a general idea of what a font play is then come back here and have some fun!

The first font is Coolsville regular


This is one of the Fonts that comes with Xara. You can find this font in the Fonts Gallery, if you don't have it installed select it in the library and click install at the top of the gallery and that's it you are good to go!

Let's Play!
Here is an example I did using this font.

[Gare]

A little bit of a back-story on "Coolsville". It's actually Cooper, and the weight is alternately called "Black", and also "Fullface", rendered in 1924, and created by designer Oswald Cooper.

Oswald Bruce Cooper called Cooper Black a font "for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers". There are a lot of variations, many of them cast by Bitstream, but "Coolsville" is the classic Cooper.

I think I eschew using it in work because it's the second font anyone ever gets, the first being "Broadway."

And although the Packard Auto Company and Anheiser-Busch used his fonts, Cooper really is remembered by one product use, the one I've used in my submission.

[wizard509]

Very interesting Gare. If I might ask, where do you get that kind of information. I was just wondering so if I need to know sometime I'll know where to look. I would like to be as knowledgeable as you sometime.

[Gare]

Hi Larry—

1. I know the real name of that typeface. Quite seriously, when I joined a users group in town in 1991, Cooper Black was one of 11 typefaces I bought on a floppy disk for $10 at the meeting. A year later, Corel included it, so I'm well-aware of "Coolsville", and its original name.

2. I did a Google search using the key phrase "Who designed Cooper Black typeface?".

#. I looked up the design on wikipedia.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am not all that knowledgeable, Larry! 99% of the people who appear smart on forums just know how to conduct a good search online!

My Best,

Gary

[Rik]

Oh Dear!

By the time I finished drawing, things started to warm up a bit!

[mwenz]

Cooper got a bit overused in the early, so-called DTP era. I remember seeing it used on near-countless newsletters and brochures that came through the service bureau I worked for through the 1990s fixing files for them that originated on PCs.

Stylized, it hit several LP album covers, tie-dyed t-shirts, etc.

Here's my little play for the day--Thanks Frances

Take care, Mike

[Gare]

Nice take on Cooper Black, Mike!

There were two reasons why a PC file would break a Macintosh print job, weren't there?

1. The PostScript font was inexpertly crafted.

2. CorelDRAW was used to create the art.

CorelDRAW sometimes gets an undeserved bad rap for muxing up print jobs in the early 1990s, but this was largely due to a bureau absolutely insisting on specific parameters for the PostScript, and that Corel corporation originally was a print driver company, specializing in woodcutting and engraving and even embroidery rips, but not genuine PostScript.

-g-

[mwenz]

Yeah, and like today, files come from so many varied sources, some bureaus have gotten use to installing about every application under the sun to deal with original files.

I began my design business with CD 1.2 (and Professional Draw). I never had a failed PS file. Heck, I still have some on SyQuest drives somewhere, which is how the PS files were exchanged with the main printer I used (and fixed files for).

By 1992, font collections literally exploded. I still have a dozen of the 5.25 floppies from SWFTE, which I think was about the first commercially viable source I remember. But we all traded via BBS, dial-up modems. Ah, the memories. But as you mention, so many were really, really poorly crafted fonts. So PC work in general got a really bad wrap simply because it was such an open system compared to MACs that people could freely exchange things (no matter how they got them).

Anyway, thanks for the compliment. It was a fun diversion while the second pot of coffee was brewing. But, I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Wait...what's that? My youngest just suggested I go with him and play a round of whack-a-ball (golf).

Take care, Mike
(who has obviously had enough coffee)

[Gare]

SWFTE fonts could play "Whack a Ball" with anyone's system, Mike!

Their offerings were uneven; some typefaces were expert while others would barf a PS printer. And you know why?

That company finally got sued out of business by Adobe, HP, Emigré, and Bitstream for copying not only their fonts, but copying them node for node, in other works they probably just renamed the fonts they ripped off.

-g-

[angelize]

Thanks Mike Gary,and Rik for playing! I like all three examples. We are already seeing some great plays, keep em coming!

Gary: I think I'll pass on that candy!