July 2010: Cooper Black

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for July is called Cooper Black. As one might suspect, it was designed by a gentleman named Cooper, in particular, Oswald Bruce Cooper who designed it in 1921.  It was released as a metal type by the Barnhart Brothers and Spindler Foundry in 1922 just before being acquired by (ATF) American Type Foundry. It is a heavy thick-stroked typeface with rounded serifs. The absence of sharp corners made it very well suited to wood-type. It was quickly adopted by the Hamilton Company and was used for the cover of their Wood-Type Catalog No.18 (See below). Our sample “Tootsie” is a 12-line cut by Hamilton. Cooper Black initially enjoyed about 20 years of popularity in both the metal and wood applications.

In the 1960s Cooper Black was used on album covers for both the Beatles (below) and the Beach Boys, which launched a second wave of popularity for casual or informal use. It was used for TV program titles including M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple, and Different Strokes, as well as lighthearted publications like Archie comics, Garfield, and National Lampoon. Cooper Black has been used for company logos for Easy Jet, Apple Computer (below), Payless Shoes and others. Despite its perceived quirky appearance by some, it has been ATF’s all-time second best-selling typeface. You can find it today on many storefronts and an old standby: the wrapper on your next Tootsie Roll (see below).

June 2010: Art Gothic

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for June is called Art Gothic. It is an unconventional typeface designed in the mid 1880s by Gustav Schroeder. As a young metal engraver in Germany he was approached by two German Americans who convinced him to move to St Louis and work for them at the Central Type Foundry. He had a long and successful career resulting in dozens of metal typeface designs.

When Art Gothic was introduced in 1887 it caused quite a stir, becoming both highly praised and severely criticized simultaneously. Those who praised it won out and Art Gothic became quite popular in its era. It was later copied into wood-type. Our sample “MURDER” is a 10-line version from a wood-type with no manufacturer’s stamp. The design however is very similar to that of Morgans & Wilcox.

In recent years Art Gothic has regained some modest popularity. It was used in the title of the 1980s TV show “Murder, She Wrote” starring Angela Lansbury and also can be found on a poster subtitle (”sail with the tide”) as part of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” attraction in Disneyland, both of which are shown below.

May 2010: Futura

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for May is called Futura. It is a sans serif typeface designed in the mid 1920s in Germany by Paul Renner. He was an admirer of the Bauhaus movement that advocated functional design simplicity with a complete absence of non-essential elements. Accordingly, Renner’s Futura design achieves a clean elegant simplicity with letter shapes based on the geometric forms of the square, circle and triangle.

Futura made its commercial debut as a metal type in 1927, when it was issued by the Bauer type foundry in Germany. It achieved an early popularity among typographers and was quickly licensed or copied in other countries. Within a decade Hamilton was selling a wood-type version of Futura. Our sample “MANKIND” is a 6-line version made later by the Acme Wood-Type Co.

Over the years Futura has retained its popularity. One notable application was its use on the lunar landing plaque (see below) that was part of the landing craft known as Eagle and later Tranquility Base, used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin for the first moon landing. Today Futura is used for several corporate names including Red Bull, Domino’s Pizza, Costco and Louis Vuitton.

April 2010: Bradley

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for April is called Bradley. It was named after William Bradley who is generally regarded as the most prominent American graphics designer of the 1890s. The typeface was based on a medieval black-letter text designed by Bradley in 1894 for a cover of journal called the Inland Printer (see below).

The American Type Foundry was sufficiently impressed to license the design from Bradley, and issued the typeface with the Bradley name. The Hamilton Co. later issued the design in wood-type with permission from the ATF.

Other type foundries soon copied this design. It was issued by the Inland Foundry as “St John”, and by the A. D. Farmer & Son Type Founding Co. as “Abbey Text”. Later the Morgans & Wilcox Manufacturing Co. added “Abbey Text” to its wood-type product line. In 1898 this company was sold to the Hamilton Co. and the 1906 Hamilton specimen book shows both typefaces with the Abbey Text version being a bit heavier. We are fortunate to have both versions: “Abbey Text” and “Bradley” wood-types in our collection. Both are shown in the type sample above; reading left to right the 12 line “Bradley” by Hamilton  and then the  8 line “Abbey Text” by Morgans & Wilcox.

In the early 1900s the Firestone Tire Co. chose a version of Abbey Text for its logo (below left). The text, like the tires have gotten thicker over the years (below right).

March 2010: Duerer

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for March is called Duerer (pronounced dyre). It was originally issued as a metal typeface in 1890 by the Boston Type Foundry, and later manufactured as wood-type by the Hamilton Co. The typeface was named after Albrecht Duerer, Germany’s sixteenth century Renaissance artist, art theorist and author who had a geometric approach to letter design. One of his woodcuts is used as a clue in the latest Dan Brown novel “The Lost Symbol”.

According to Nicolette Gray in her book on ornamented typefaces, the Duerer typeface is characterized by almost square spaces within normally curved letters, some diagonal strokes midway up some letters, and strong vertical strokes with modest serifs that are highly inclined on some letters such that they descend below the baseline. All these features can be seen on our 10-line sample “GERMANY” by Hamilton. You can also see the Duerer typeface currently featured in various promotional materials for Del Taco (see example below).

February 2010: Brush Script

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for February is called Brush Script. This type was donated to the museum earlier this year by Mr. Milton Birnbaum, a long-time museum friend. He rescued the type for safekeeping at the closing of his father’s print shop in Florida. After some years, he decided that the museum would be a good home for it and we are most grateful.

The Rob Roy Kelly Wood Type website reports that the brush script dates back to 1859 when it was first shown by J. G. Cooley, a wood-type manufacturer. Script type in general achieved a modest degree of popularity later in the 1800s. The typeface resembles cursive handwriting, as perhaps executed with a brush, but some versions like ours departs from true script since the letters do not connect. Our sample “Type Gift” is an 8-line version manufactured by Page. Sadly, the name they chose for this beautiful type is # 226.

January 2010: Mikado

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for this month is Mikado and was apparently inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera of the same name. The show opened in London in March of 1885 and in New York later that same year. According to Nicolete Gray in her classic book on ornamented typefaces, the English foundry of Sir Charles Reed and Son introduced a metal type called “Japanese” also in 1885. She characterized this typeface and other oriental based typefaces as superficial in their foreign influence. Nonetheless it appears that it was later copied by several of the American Wood-type companies. The 1906 Hamilton wood-type specimen catalog shows four versions of this design; one by Hamilton and three by acquired companies. The versions by Wells, and Morgans & Wilcox are called Mikado. The Hamilton and Page versions use model numbers 204 and 156 respectively. It is difficult to determine the specific dates when this particular wood-type was introduced, but the earliest wood-type catalog I could find showing Mikado is the 1888 Page catalog. Our sample “WINTER” is a 15 line unstamped type most similar to the Hamilton version. Incidentally, another English foundry, Miller and Richard introduced a metal typeface in 1887, also named Mikado. That typeface is totally different than the one presented here.

December 2009: Gothic No. 5

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for October was Hobo and it featured all curved edges. This month we go in the opposite direction with a wood-type called Gothic No. 5. It features all exterior straight edges, even for the curved letters. Any interior curves edges remain curved. As can be seen in our example “JOYOUS” the corners of the normally curved portions are all angled, and the expected curves are approximated with a series of straight lines. According to wood-type historian Rob Roy Kelly, the use of angled corners was first done in the 1830s by Leavenworth (a wood-type pioneer). The angled corner typeface did not become popular until much later when Page introduced his version (No.173) in 1879. Shortly thereafter it was produced by several manufacturers in several sizes and variations including lightface, condensed, and expanded. Our sample is a 12 line condensed version from an unidentified manufacturer.

October 2009: Hobo

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood-type for October is called Hobo. It was designed in 1910 as a metal typeface by a prolific typeface designer named Morris Fuller Benton, who designed over fifty typefaces during his career. The Hobo typeface was later manufactured in wood-type by the Hamilton Company.  Hobo has two interesting design features. First, all the letters are all composed of curved lines thus eliminating all of those pesky rigid straight lines. Secondly, none of the letters use descenders. Letters that normally have a descender are resized and moved up to fit in the allotted space for a letter with no descender. These features give Hobo a casual look that suggests informal applications such as invitations and advertising for fun events. Our sample “HOBO type” is an 8-line version that shows both upper and lower case to illustrate the design features. In preparation for the 100-year anniversary of Hobo next year, there are a few websites that are soliciting Hobo sightings (photos showing use of Hobo typeface). Check it out on Google.

September 2009: Eureka

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood type selected for September 2009 is called Eureka. This typeface was introduced by Wells & Company in 1877. It featured small split terminations at the ends of the vertical and horizontal strokes much like the divergent strokes on a capital Y. It was thought that to be a variation of a Page design from 1859 known as Antique Tuscan No 9 that had barely discernible split terminations. In addition according to R.R. Kelly, some European type of a similar design was being imported into the US in this time period. Independent of its origin, it was a popular typeface, and was often the basis for even more decorative types. It was soon copied by Page & Company, as was the custom of the day. Our sample “ICED TEA” is a 10-line version of Eureka made by Hamilton after that company acquired both the Wells and Page companies in the early 1990s.

August 2009: Aldine

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood type of the month for August is called Aldine. It is a derivative of the antique type style but it includes the bracketed serifs of the Clarendon style. This means that the junction of the serif and a stroke has a rounded fillet that provides a smoother transition instead of an abrupt 90-degree angle. According to R. R. Kelly, the Aldine wood-type was first introduced by William H. Page in 1870, and was widely used for posters for the next 30 years. Ultimately the Aldine typeface was cast in metal for other applications. Our RUSTIC sample is a 10-line wood-type manufactured by the Hamilton Co.

July 2009: Painters Roman

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

The wood type for July is called Painters Roman. Like June’s Aetna, this type was also produced as a sturdier replacement for the somewhat fragile thin strokes of the Roman wood-type. As such it was in competition with Aetna. Painters Roman is concave lettering made up of thick and thin strokes like its Roman predecessor, but the thin strokes are a little thicker and the thin serifs are totally eliminated.

It was first produced by Vanderburgh and Wells in the late 1870s with the formal name of Painters Roman Condensed No. 2. In 1880, the Wm. Page Wood Type Co. issued a very similar typeface called Page No. 111. Wells followed this by issuing Painters Roman Condensed No. 1 which was very similar to Page’s Aetna condensed. This continued, resulting in a range of variations for both typefaces produced by both companies.

Our sample is in the Wells 5 line variety of Painters Roman Condensed No. 2.

June 2009: Aetna

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

Our wood type for June is known as Aetna. This type is derived from the Roman typeface, one of the three major categories of wood type. As we recall, the Roman typeface consists of very thin and very thick strokes. According to R. R. Kelly, Roman type was losing popularity with printers because of a perceived fragility, particularly of the thin strokes. The Aetna typeface was designed to remedy this problem and therefore was born out of need rather than copied from metal type as were so many other wood typefaces. Aetna features thicker thin strokes as well as thicker serifs. It first appeared in 1870, offered by Wm. H. Page. It remained a popular typeface for poster work for the rest of the 1800’s. It is likely that Mr. Page named the type after the thriving insurance company founded in 1850 in a neighboring community. He had named other typefaces after local sites and people. Our sample for June is a 10 line Aetna with the word chosen to feature some of the more distinctive letters of this typeface.

May 2009: Aetna

By Jim Thompson, IPM Board of Trustees

Our third major wood-type category, once again according to Rob Roy Kelly, is Antique. It is characterized by the presence of slab serifs, which are nearly equal in width to the major strokes of the letter A.  The serifs are unbracketed which means that the serifs attach to the strokes with an abrupt right angle transition (without any triangular or curved fillets in the corners).

This typeface first appeared in metal type in 1815 in Figgins’ Type Foundry in England. Wood-type Antique was first produced in 1828 in the U.S. by Darius Wells when he began mass-producing wood-type. As the industry matured two parallel developments occurred. Several variations in Antique type style were created such as italics, tilting, outline, shaded, light face, condensed, and expanded type to various degrees. In addition, several derivative typefaces of Antique came to be created, including Clarendon, Antique Tuscan, Grecian, Latin, French Clarendon, Egyptian, Aldine, Columbia, and Ionic. Today Antique typeface is used in the names of companies seeking the trust of their customers. These include many banks, investment houses, and insurance companies. Our sample is a 10 line wood-type from an as-yet-unknown manufacturer.