Spacing Chart poster – Cooper & Beatty, (Ed Cooper?), 1927

Notes

Formed in 1921 as Trade Composition Co., the company changed its name to Cooper & Beatty, Limited in 1926 after third partner J. L. Pepper left the firm. The remaining partners, Ed Cooper and Lew Beatty, ran the company until 1950 when they sold it to long-time employee Jack Trevett. This is one of the earliest Cooper & Beatty promotional pieces we are aware of. It shows their early understanding of the value, and perhaps necessity, of educating their clients on how to achieve good typography. It was an approach they employed in their advertising and promotional materials well into the late-1970s. Promotional pieces such as this one helped to firmly establish Cooper & Beatty as the premier type shop in Toronto. Generations of typographers, and clients, would owe much of their typographic knowledge to C&B. Following the examples of good spacing on this poster is still instructive, although it also shows just how much our approach to typography has changed over the last 100 years. – Rod McDonald

  • Category
    Advertising and Promotion

    Title
    Spacing Chart

    Date
    1927

    Client
    Cooper & Beatty, Limited

    Credits
    Design: (possibly Ed Cooper)
    Typography: Cooper & Beatty

    Principal Typefaces
    Display: Caslon Display Series No. 437E and New Caslon Series No. 637J (footer)
    Text: Caslon Old Style Series 337E (roman) with No, 337G (italic). The decorative border is composed in three Monotype ornaments. The outer ornaments are No. 26A and 26B. The inner ornament is No. 27. A continuous two-weight ‘Scotch’ or ‘Oxford’ double rule runs around the inside of the assembled border.

    Description
    Two-colour large broadside
    Size: 16 × 23.5 inches

    Region
    Ontario

    Languages
    English

    Number of images
    1

    Holding
    Canadian Typography Archives

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