Small caps?
The 'at' looks a bit lost, unnecessary.

I can't believe I'm commenting.

Also, enlarging the capitals on the bottom line competes hierarchically with the top line, one is larger one is over capitalised.

Somebody stop me.

More proof that smallcaps are only for really picky people.
Ergo: we should NOT just include them in basic packages.

hhp

Picky is pejorative… rather fastidious? Maybe not even as superlative.

But yeah.

they will actually sell it for 2 pounds? can we buy them online?

Well seeing how this event is a debasement of mass consumption in which its only purpose is to further indulge our need for longing for things, opportunities, and lifestyles we cannot achieve, I am fairly sure you can buy it somewhere. Frankly the wedding itself isn't what people are tuning in for, I think the majority of us don't really give a hoot about it. Only reason why most people tune in is to see how the wealthy spend their money on ridiculous. The best part is, British civilians will be picking up part of the price tag, apparently $33 million is a bit steep for the Windsor family.

Anyways, to the topic at hand, that is quite a lovely booklet they got. I must agree with the "at" comment, it does a look exiled from the rest, maybe it's the village idiot of the group?

> Only reason why most people tune in is
> to see how the wealthy spend their money

People certainly have a fascination with wealth, but my guess is the main reason people (mainly women, according to one poll I saw) have a fascination with the royal wedding is the fantasy element. Royal weddings have been the subject of numerous myths, stories and movies. It's the fantasy of marrying a prince and having an amazing wedding and living happily every after.

Plus just the spectacle of it. People like a good show.

Plus just the spectacle of it. People like a good show.

What dreary, third-rate typography for such a splendid occasion.

Agree with Nick. Unfortunately, the interior typography seems rather lousy and haphazard — large justification rivers, overly long line lengths, awkward magazine-style pull quotes, etc. etc. Rather disappointing, I think.

I was disappointed with it also. I wonder who designed it?

One problem (among many) may have something to do with not hyphenating any of the justified text.

There's a design credit (a firm or studio, not an individual) on the last page.

By the design of the pamphlet, my bet is they hired some tech savy kid who maintains the wifi in the castle so the queen can update her Facebook status' on her iPhone 4 (the white one!) without using up any of her cellphones data. Then they ran it by a few uneducated "designers" who gave it the okay and then went on their merry little ways.

Odds are this isn't the case, but it would be entertaining if it was.

> There's a design credit (a firm or studio,
> not an individual) on the last page.

Thanks. The Haymarket Media Group. I'm not familiar with them, but I Googled their name and found this press release announcing they were chosen to design the program:

http://www.haymarket.com/newsarticle.aspx?news=981

So let me get this straight, this company has also been recruited to do the same thing for the 2012 Olympics?

Well so much for high hopes for the Olympics...

Can you tell me what shortcuts Mrs. and Mr. mean?

Maybe Michael Middleton is a transsexual and Haymarket Media Group didn't want to get any of the technicalities wrong?

Alright, well I have just been informed that sometimes wives are refereed to as Mrs. .

Sorry for my lack of cultural knowledge.

Thanks, Sir.
BTW in olde times was habit to name a wife with her husband's Cristian name, in that case the wife of Michał would be Michałowa ( = Michałowa żona = Michael's wife)

> Well so much for high hopes for the Olympics...

Let them just get the clock straight:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12749912

Then they wonder why their airport doesn't work.

hhp

I could totally understand the breakdown if this was a super accurate atomic clock, but seeing how this is just a standard countdown timer in a fancy case... well that is just sloppy.

I wonder if they remembered to test the clock in cool, cold and freezing weather before installing it.

I wonder if I have read „William and Kate choose eminent British typographer for designing the wed invitation… ” somewhere.

There was news added about the wedding invite and how it uses Perpetua Italic. A nice nod to British typeface design, but the typography itself seems very canned. And last night on 20/20 I couldn't believe my eyes when I noticed they used Lucida Sans as the typeface for the names.

@Tiffany - Ya gotta be shitting us! Ya just gotta! Even if it were Lucida Handwriting...

Seriously!

Oh that's right. I meant Lucida Handwriting, not Lucida Sans. Oops. A typo.

while (1) { bash_head_against_wall; }

Sounds like it was all a Royal Pain in the Asß. Glad I slept and ignored the whole thing. This reminds me of the scene in "The King's Speech" where the anointed Royal experts on speech therapy blasted away at only guy in the Kingdom who actually could do some good. "Nice enough fellow, wrong side of the Thames though, commoner you know, merely a tradesman without even one manservant"

With the big bucks that family has, they could have hired the best and gotten the best.

From the image, it looks like they didn't have small caps, and thus the words "Official Programme" were instead set in two different sizes of normal capital letters.

And I don't think one needs to be "really picky" to find that unfortunate.

Placing "at" on a line by itself, so that the names of the bride and groom can be on one line, and the name of the place can be on another line, seems quite reasonable to me for a document of this nature - a title page, at least, can legitimately have something of the category of an invitation card.

What was the custom in olden times was that if Mary Jones married John Smith, she would still be addressed as "Mary" by her friends, but if she were addressed formally, she would be called "Mrs. John Smith", to indicate that she is the wife of John Smith - and, in fact, the form "Mrs. Mary Smith" would be improper, used only in the case of a divorced woman. (Referring to her less formally as "Mary Smith", however, was proper even then.)

> And I don't think one needs to be "really picky" to find that unfortunate.

Don't those go hand in hand?
(I meant "picky" in the best possible way.)

hhp

@dezcom
Ironically half of the wedding is getting paid by taxpayers. Apparently even a $34 million wedding is steep for them.

The best part about the whole invitation scheme is actually their rejection letters. (sorry for the large size)

Forsooth when one receives a Rejection Letter from
The Queen one must nonetheless don proper attire
during the Ceremony, while remaining in residence.

hhp

I know that when I use the phrase "really picky", I am referring to a concern over things that... it is not really necessary to be concerned about.

I think genuine small capitals are more in the category of things that one ought to be concerned about, even if many people are not these days, and so one could get away with cutting corners.

However, until such time as small capitals are supported in a standard manner by the operating system itself - as opposed to being supported only in more expensive applications programs - I think it is still legitimate to exclude them from basic font packages. The criterion which I see as applicable is not concerned with the intrinsic importance of small capitals, but the simple fact that only professional users would actually be able to make use of them if provided, and so given this... environmental... circumstance, it's legitimate to make them one more item only included in the "professional" version of the font with its professional pricing.

When, as, and if, Windows gets fixed so that small capitals are at least as easy to access as bold and italic from within WordPad, and any rich text control that might appear in an application or on a web page, then a regular font that doesn't come with small capitals would look silly. That day has not yet come.

You know you got influential power when you can tell people what to wear at home after you have just shut them down.

"...one must nonetheless don proper attire
during the Ceremony, while remaining in residence."

LOL!!!

Brett — Very funny. I note you had the good sense to use Bickham instead of Lucida Handwriting.

And why couldn't the invitations have been individually typeset with the recipients' names set in Perpetua as well? I know a print shop that sets and prints each individual Yale graduation certificate in metal type, one copy of each. Couldn't something like that have been done here, instead of pulling an off-the-shelf, free font?

I think we have established that they are not Picky.

hhp

IMAO, the best part of it all was the flypast. There is this something about a Rolls-Royce Merlin pulling revs, let alone six of them.