We all strive to express ourselves. And expression can take many forms. My favorite is through the written word. Although the written word is constrained, it provides me with the control that I seek over my thoughts.
[As the late Richard Mitchell asserted, without writing prose, the mind is a rudderless wanderer.]
I am constantly learning better ways to write. This learning includes expanding my vocabulary, learning the technical principles and details of my topic, and mastering the nuances of composition and grammar.
Beyond these basic requirements, there are several crucial aspects of composition that I might never have learned about without the stern tutelage of two mentors along my developmental path as I did not encounter these aspects in formal schooling. These aspects are about the mere appearance of the composition.
[My inner thoughts privately rebelled against the advice of these experienced mentors while I was in no position to appear to be uncooperative. In my employment position at the time (my twenties), I was forced to submit to their rules. And as it turned out, it was to be a valuable education that only experience can provide. Despite my inclination to reject their apparent interference with my personal right to express myself in the way I chose, I eventually came to see the wisdom of their judgements.]
For example, do I consider the reader’s eye fatigue in the layout? To serve this consideration, I endeavor to:
Provide ample white space
Use a typeface for the body text that flows (serifed)
Employ short paragraphs
Employ narrow columns of text to shorten eye travel
Another part of the appearance consideration specifically regards typographic devices. With the layout tools provided in modern word processing software, the availability of these devices is now seeming infinite. Over the past several decades this availabililty has both expanded and contracted a few times.
The invention of the printing press originally constrained the use of various fonts. At first, machine printed documents could not reproduce the ornate designs of the individual letters that some writers used in their hand-crafted manuscripts (however much the mass production was facilitated). Eventually, more typefaces became available, although early printers loathed to incur the expense of supplying more than the basic few typefaces.
[Actually, the reduction in artistic lettering due to the printing press enhanced readability. Ornate lettering is often a challenge to read.]
Then the portable typewriter became available (1829) and the number of typefaces for it was constrained to just the one provided on the typewriter. The only practical way to obtain special typefaces for another 150 years was to take one’s typed manuscript to a professional printer and pay him big bucks to lay it out and print it with the typefaces of choice.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)—as well as many other writers—hated the drudgery and expense of having to take works produced from his typewriter to a printer. He lost a fortune investing in inventions, some of which were printing-press innovations to bridge this gap.
Eventually, the IBM Selectric typewriter emerged (1961) with changeable spherically shaped typeface elements. This greatly improved the accessibility of setting off special text—italicized phrases for example—within a single document.
Thereafter (late 70s and early 80s), desktop publishing emerged on personal computers. And the vintage print shops were then almost eliminated as the number of available typefaces became seemingly infinite to any writer. However, this expansion of typographical access in typeface would contract again with the advent of texting on cell phones. It is also greatly constrained within the platform that I now often use—the Substack.
Among the typographical choices, there are several ways to set off words and phrases. For instance, I learned from an astrophysicist that weight is always to be set off in some way (with italics, underline, double underline, all-caps, etc.) to ensure that readers don’t confuse the technical concept of weight with the technical concept of mass. In the field of astrophysics, this is crucially important. Here, we have an example of expression in the field of astrophysics being facilitated by typography!
ALL-CAPS (All Uppercase)
I often witness writers who emphasize words or phrases by employing all-caps. I even encounter this in legal documents wherein entire paragraphs, titles, or the documents in toto are in uppercase. Except in rare instances, this is a blunder. I will attempt to explain why.
Typography is a technical art form that has been around for hundreds of years. Its rules were established around the limitations of two things: the limits of visual perception and the mechanical limits of the printing process. [I have a great appreciation of these considerations, but please do not assume that I’m an expert in these topics.]
In the early days of printing, strict decisions had to be made. These decisions concerned the size(s) of available paper, the practical dimensional limits of the press, the available colors of ink, the tracking of the eyes, the storage of the product, the binding process, etc.
The typographers were those printers who fanatically studied the qualities of the typefaces and which typefaces were best suited to particular uses. In many cases, they actually made the typefaces for the printers. Just making the typefaces for the printers was an all-consuming vocation.
Among all of these considerations, it’s probable that the concerns for tracking of the eye and eye fatigue get short shrift. I expect the good-enough crowd weighs in for quantity over quality. And like I was in my early days as a writer, the concern for eye fatigue becomes underemphasized.
In addition to eye fatigue and tracking, there is another factor of readability. I call it visualized type contraction. [I am not referring to what the typographers term kerning.] And it is often caused merely with the use of all-caps.
Ask yourself which of the following two expressions of the same car manufacturer is more difficult to read:
BUICK Buick
It is obvious to a large majority of readers that the one written in all-caps is more difficult to read. It’s visually contracted (not kerned) into a blocked image that makes the individual letters less distinctive.
So why would those high-paid marketeers with General Motors create a logo or moniker that makes for difficult reading. I suppose they have their artistic reasons. But seeing such on their products makes me wonder if they were taught the principles that I’m trying to convey.
Notice the use of all-caps on bill boards, office signs, business cards, and on the message boards with movable magnetic letters. All-caps is the rule when they should be the exception. Capitalization of every first letter (of each word) is much more readable in these applications. At least, this is crucial principle for achieving message conveyance, especially for the readers who may have time for only a quick glance at the letters.
And, as already mentioned, I often witness the use of all-caps in legal documents. I suppose that an argument could be made that a legal contract written in all-caps is a deliberate device to obscure unsavory conditions within the contract. [I know attorneys who seem to forgive this practice as they are used to seeing this in their field. It’s not considerate for the layman reader; however. And if it is a special convention for the legal profession, let’s not extend this to extra-legal prose.]
I routinely encounter comments (to an article) entirely written in all-caps. I suppose that the writer is merely being lazy. If so, why not write the entire comment in lower case instead of uppercase?
Although I read many comments made to the articles I read, I automatically ignore those in all-caps. I refuse to subject my eyes to the blocked type.
I must assume that the commenter sincerely believes that his ideas will stand out if they are in all-caps. [Perhaps the commenter intends the suggestion that he is yelling at the readers.] Obviously, he does not know that all-caps does just the opposite. Is this erroneous idea the same idea used by those marketeers for General Motors? Is GM effectively screaming at us?
Note that when someone screams, the screamed words often become unintelligible just as do words typed in all-caps.
All-caps is sometimes useful, but it must be used sparingly.
An occasional short word in all-caps is permissible and useful. Somewhat less permissible and useful is a very short phrase in all-caps.
I imagine that if Mark Twain was still alive, he might characterize uppercase abuse with his signature flare:
“By writing entire prosaic sentences or paragraphs in all-caps, one commits felonies.”
this font really hurts my eyes. it's vibrating
By the way I visited a museum recently here in Scotland which was an old printer and they explained the origin of the term “upper case”. The capital letters were literally stored for use in a case above the other letters which were in the lower case. Obvious but interesting.