Try to simplify the Cooper Black for Children 5-7 years old
Wednesday 17 March 2010
Cooper Black
Oswald Bruce Cooper designed Cooper Black, an extra bold roman face, based on the forms of his earlier typeface Cooper Old Style, which appeared with Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Founders in Chicago. Copper Black was produced by Barnhart in 1922 and acquired in 1924 by the Schriftguß AG in Dresden, where it was later completed with a matching italic. Although Cooper Black appeared in the first third of the 20th century, it still looks comtemporary and it can be found on storefronts in almost any city scene. The flowing outer contours create forms that are both strong and soft, making Cooper Black an extremely flexible font.
The story behind the typephase
20 years after Cooper black was designed a big tragedy struck was followed and was dropped from public's eyes. In 1920 Cooper Black when was first created was really popular to the public but it didn't took long for it's ground breaking. In 1940 Barnhart died and with him gone things turn to a different level for Cooper black when in 1966 Beach Boys released their rock n' roll album 'Pet Sounds' with the cooper as the main typephase. After that unable to resist representing the rock n' roll it moved to a really downfall when was desperate for work and was used for drugs, pills and cocaine. In the middle 80's Cooper Black hit the bottom when in the 90's fought for its survival by trying to show to the world why it was designed. Today is a hit for advertisers because of is friendly, simple and bold design.
Oswald Bruce Cooper designed Cooper Black, an extra bold roman face, based on the forms of his earlier typeface Cooper Old Style, which appeared with Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Founders in Chicago. Copper Black was produced by Barnhart in 1922 and acquired in 1924 by the Schriftguß AG in Dresden, where it was later completed with a matching italic. Although Cooper Black appeared in the first third of the 20th century, it still looks comtemporary and it can be found on storefronts in almost any city scene. The flowing outer contours create forms that are both strong and soft, making Cooper Black an extremely flexible font.
The story behind the typephase
20 years after Cooper black was designed a big tragedy struck was followed and was dropped from public's eyes. In 1920 Cooper Black when was first created was really popular to the public but it didn't took long for it's ground breaking. In 1940 Barnhart died and with him gone things turn to a different level for Cooper black when in 1966 Beach Boys released their rock n' roll album 'Pet Sounds' with the cooper as the main typephase. After that unable to resist representing the rock n' roll it moved to a really downfall when was desperate for work and was used for drugs, pills and cocaine. In the middle 80's Cooper Black hit the bottom when in the 90's fought for its survival by trying to show to the world why it was designed. Today is a hit for advertisers because of is friendly, simple and bold design.
Sunday 14 March 2010
The Experiment
It has been long time since my last post because of my horrible internet connection. However I would like to inform you about my recent activities on my project.
Two weeks ago I visited a primary school at Sheffield to do an experiment with children around the age of 5-7. The experiment it was created in such way that children would feel comfortable and be suitable for their age. The experiment was split in 3 parts and was tested to be no more than 20 minutes.
First part: For the first part of the test I used six different fonts (serifs, sanserif, 3D, rounded, Bold, Italic) with the letter "A" printed each one of the letter in black on a A4 paper. The papers were placed on the board so all the children would be able to see them in a distance.
Each child had to stick a green sticker on the letter "A" that liked the most and a red sticker for the one that didn't like. The children were really excited as the test was designed to fit their age and look like a game in order to know better how a 5-7 year old child react and how different they see some things from a grown up.
Second part: The second part was a similar to the first test but the only difference was that the letter "A" was in different colour to see if the children choose a particular font because of their shape or the colour and if colour play an important role in their life.
I was really impressed when the I saw the results from both tests that were the same and that the children picked up Cooper Black font as the best one through out all. The answer why the chose that particular font is because it looks more like an A and its shape is really fancy and happy.
However the font that didn't like at all was Bauhaus as I thought that children would love it because of its friendly round shape. The reason why didn't like it because is really rounded looks like an unfinished A, reminds them of an umbrella and is not beautiful and happy.
Third part: The third part of the experiment was a simple questionnaire asking the children to highlight or to draw in a circle the word that thought look better, the size of the word, how bold they prefer the word and six colours that they like.
The children more or less highlighted the same ones.They prefer the size to be big, bold letters and serif font like cooper black.The colour section was confusing as the boy chose dark colours like blue, green and black when the girls chose yellow, orange and red.
The experience was great and helped me to understand how children think and react in order to help me create something educating and creative for children.
It has been long time since my last post because of my horrible internet connection. However I would like to inform you about my recent activities on my project.
Two weeks ago I visited a primary school at Sheffield to do an experiment with children around the age of 5-7. The experiment it was created in such way that children would feel comfortable and be suitable for their age. The experiment was split in 3 parts and was tested to be no more than 20 minutes.
First part: For the first part of the test I used six different fonts (serifs, sanserif, 3D, rounded, Bold, Italic) with the letter "A" printed each one of the letter in black on a A4 paper. The papers were placed on the board so all the children would be able to see them in a distance.
Each child had to stick a green sticker on the letter "A" that liked the most and a red sticker for the one that didn't like. The children were really excited as the test was designed to fit their age and look like a game in order to know better how a 5-7 year old child react and how different they see some things from a grown up.
Second part: The second part was a similar to the first test but the only difference was that the letter "A" was in different colour to see if the children choose a particular font because of their shape or the colour and if colour play an important role in their life.
I was really impressed when the I saw the results from both tests that were the same and that the children picked up Cooper Black font as the best one through out all. The answer why the chose that particular font is because it looks more like an A and its shape is really fancy and happy.
However the font that didn't like at all was Bauhaus as I thought that children would love it because of its friendly round shape. The reason why didn't like it because is really rounded looks like an unfinished A, reminds them of an umbrella and is not beautiful and happy.
Third part: The third part of the experiment was a simple questionnaire asking the children to highlight or to draw in a circle the word that thought look better, the size of the word, how bold they prefer the word and six colours that they like.
The children more or less highlighted the same ones.They prefer the size to be big, bold letters and serif font like cooper black.The colour section was confusing as the boy chose dark colours like blue, green and black when the girls chose yellow, orange and red.
The experience was great and helped me to understand how children think and react in order to help me create something educating and creative for children.
Wednesday 24 February 2010
Understanding the colour importance in Children's books
Donna Hunt O'Brien Manager of Born to Learn Trainingconsiders that the level of expressive language a child has depends on how may begin to sort objects before labels items by colour in a very early age. Also she claims that 2-year-old children have enough language to put words together to create describing phrases such as 'my red ball.'
So by the time the kid becomes a preschooler, around the age of 3 to 5 years, is ready to experiment with colour and start recognise it. "[Children this age are] beginning to understand that there are shades of colors, and that two colors can be mixed to form another," Hunt O'Brien says.
Some examples of children's typography I found and colours that are used:
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