Typophile

Setting B&H - All Caps, Small Caps, Small Ampersand or Other?

An Accident

Hello,

I'm setting a book of short stories and one story contains two slightly awkward initialisms close together:
PhD - which has been discussed elsewhere on Typophile and I think is probably best left in mixed case, no small caps.
Then two lines below:
B&H - a common UK abbreviation for Benson & Hedges cigarettes (nobody says the full name).

Elsewhere in the book I have used small caps for things like ATM (on the same page as PhD and B&H), CDs, and RAF; however, with B&H in close proximity to PhD and having an ampersand, I wasn't sure of the best option.

• All Caps maybe be 'correct', but I'm worried that it stands out a little too much.
• Small Caps looks odd, particularly with the mixed case PhD two lines above.
• Uppercase B and H with a small ampersand (part of the glyph set for Garamond Premier Pro) seems to balance the shape of PhD better, but I don't know if it is correct use of the small ampersand.
• Something else.

Any ideas?

Additional information:
• There are no other regular ampersands in the book, only one italic ampersand in a title, and one italic ampersand in an italicised film name.
• Justified, Garamond Premier Pro regular, 10pt/12pt



johnnydib

I don't see anything wrong with Small Caps B&H. PhD is mixed case but so is every first word in a sentence.
I think the consistency between ATM and B&H is more important than the visual balance between PhD and B&H (that said I think Garamond Premier has very appropriate small caps for this situation).

An Accident

Thanks.

You're right about consistency between ATM and B&H. I guess I was wondering if two uppercase initials with an ampersand in the middle counts in the same way as three uppercase initials. I think it does visually, but I wondered if there were other common practices for situations like this.

Are you suggesting Garamond Premier Pro has a small caps solution for PhD?

Andrew

johnnydib

No I think U&lc PhD is more appropriate in text.
It's true that Hedges and Benson are proper names but because it's a brand name I wouldn't keep the initials full caps in body text.
JFK is set in full caps in 'JFK gave a speech in July 1959' but in small caps in 'We landed in JFK at dawn'

An Accident

OK, I understand.

This way all the acronyms and initialisms are in small caps and I get an excuse to use that nice small ampersand.

Thanks again.

Quincunx

I'd agree that the smallcaps B&H with normal PhD is the better solution.

An Accident

Thanks, I think that's what I'll go with.

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