Cockney Slang poster – Cooper & Beatty, Jim Donoahue and Al Elliott, c1970

The Cockney Slang poster focuses mainly on Lettergraphics faces although Donoahue and Elliott did manage to sneak in one Headliners face. ‘Bubble & Squeak’ is set in neo-Charade outline shadow, one of Elliott’s recent additions to the Headliners library.

The title lettering for Cockney Slang is composed using two separate outlines, with an inside shadow, all hand drawn on illustration board. The first outline is a thin line around the actual lettering, that outline is surrounded by a white space which is defined by a slightly heavier outline. Finally, the first inner thin line is also part of a shadow inside the base letter that, at its thickest, is the same weight as the heavy outside line. The two words form a deliberately complex composition that cleverly depicts the convoluted nature of cockney slang.

Notes

We feel justified in giving this piece a shared credit. The poster itself was designed by Jim Donoahue, Cooper & Beatty Art Director. The title was hand lettered by Al Elliott who at the time, was with Headliners, the photo lettering division of C&B. We are fortunate to have both the poster and the original artwork for the title. This poster is a little unusual in that it was designed to promote Cooper & Beatty’s other photo lettering services.

Photo lettering was charged by the word and Headliners, Cooper & Beatty’s primary lettering studio, was quite expensive, so the type shops also offered less expensive photo lettering. These secondary services would typically supply ‘galley’ strips of lettering that the client would assemble into jobs or headlines themselves. The libraries for this type of lettering also used 2 inch film fonts from a variety of sources including; Film-o-type, Visual Graphics Corporation (VGC) and Lettergraphics. – Rod McDonald

Category
Advertising and Promotion;
Designers, Typographers and Letter Artists
Title
Cockney Slang
Date
c1970
Client
Cooper & Beatty, Limited
Credits
Design: Jim Donoahue (1934–2022)
Hand-lettering: Al Elliott (1922–1979)
Principal Typefaces
Hand-lettering, various photo lettering faces
Text: Bookman (Monotype)
Description
Two-colour poster
Hand-lettering: ink on illustration board
Poster Size: 15 × 12 inches
Lettering: 10.5 inches wide
Regions
Ontario
Languages
English
Number of images
2
Holding
Poster: Private collection of Jeffrey Elliott
Lettering: Canadian Typography Archives
Artifact copyright: CTA was unable to clarify rights but welcomes contact from rightsholders to resolve permissions, if required, and will remove digitized works at the rightsholder’s request (rightsholders may contact CTA at copyright@canadiantypography.ca). CTA makes digitized works available for education and research. Responsibility for any use rests with the user.
Notes copyright: Notes accompanying artifacts are licenced under Creative Commons licensing CCbyNC which allows for non-commercial use with attribute.

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Cockney Slang poster – Cooper & Beatty, Jim Donoahue and Al Elliott, c1970

Notes

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