http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/4100/56067.html

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To me, something is useful to the extent that it will probably be used. Smallcaps are rarely used. Even by people who know they’re there, even in huge, expensive environmental signage projects, like the lettering aroung the fountain in Pasadena’s “Paseo Colorado” mall. I mean, how much does it cost to make that decision, compared to just the damn water pump? But they don’t use them, and that’s that. Type design is one thing, typographic evangelism is another — attempt both at your own risk.

So I’d rather see a designer spend his time on a new design. But if you must make smallcaps, at least please don’t just thrown them in with the basic font — that’s just wasteful.

hhp

did i touch a nerve? it was just a question…

Nope, no nerve touched. Did my ASCII sound that way?  :-)
But it is pissy to see good decisions not taken even when they’re free.

> how much more difficult is it to give the user italic smallcaps?

That’s a good point. Assuming you think italic caps are fine when they’re simply [mostly] sloped — which I don’t… Anyway, I was talking about smallcaps in general. And I wasn’t saying they’re never ever useful to anybody — just that it’s tough to justify making them to some extent. Why not work on a different optical size instead? To me a lot of things make more sense than making smallcaps. Just not unicase, PLEEEEZE!  :-/ Now that’s a nerve…

hhp

I recall seeing some nice title pages done which included small cap italics. As long as the italic capitals are not too flourished, smallcap italics make sense. True, most users won’t use them but those users are not the ones who buy lots of fonts (they stick with the free fonts that come with other software). People with a great interest in typography do though and they are more likely to want smallcaps. This then becomes a selling feature.

ChrisL

I can’t remember if I’ve ever used an italic smallcap: I suspect not. I use roman smallcaps a lot, so its not as if I wouldn’t use the italics if I could think of a use for them. It should also be noted that italic all-caps are rare and generally frowned upon by typographic tradition, which explains why smallcap counterparts are as rare or rarer.

The new MS ClearType fonts all contain smallcaps for all four styles (regular, bold, italic, bold italic), but MS have, um, special users, who complain if one style of a font doesn’t behave in Powerpoint exactly the same way as the other styles.

\i[special users]

i guess that’s basically wanted to know… how many “special” users are there out in the word that need catering to?

Chris, I would say that the availability of smallcaps is a selling point. But bundling a niche thing with a mainstream thing and selling them at one low price (because you couldn’t sell enough of them at a high price) is just bad business. Whatever price you sell the main font at, you should sell an extra that people who care would buy for about the same amount, without having to raise the price of something with an extra that most people will never use. It’s just sensitive tiering.

> italic all-caps are rare and generally frowned upon

Doesn’t that apply only to swashy ones?

hhp

Doesn’t that apply only to swashy ones?

Especially to swashy ones. Italic all-caps start showing up fairly commonly in title-pages in the 18th century, but seldom in any other context. I think typographers should generally ask themselves, when considering setting something in all-caps italics, whether there is any reason not to use roman all-caps instead. One can imagine, for instance, a title in all-caps that includes a non-naturalised foreign word; this might be a good reason to use all-cap italics. On the whole, though, I don’t think there are many good reasons.

John, I think we did use italic small caps (or did we fake them?) in Language Culture Type. In that job roman s.c. were used for the acronyms, like ATF, ITC, GSUB, AAT, ASCII, &c., so in the titles with acronyms we used italic s.c. For example, Typographica USSR, Calligraphia USA/USSR (p. 45). And what about that edition of Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales, remember? Have any italic s.c. been used there?

> how much more difficult is it to give the user italic smallcaps?

Well, having designing some of them, Italic SC are pain to do, specially for Serif typefaces. Specially because when you done the SC roman, with some systematic approche, suddenly it became more difficult to apply the same for the Italic.

At level user, I use quite a lot SC italic, but as I use only my fonts in most of the cases… so bad example as John can be I suppose? ;)

Oh yes, Maxim, now I remember faking the italic smallcaps in Language Culture Type. Acronyms in italicised titles is another rare but good reason for having italic smallcaps.

No italic smallcaps in the Gurdjieff, only roman (unless someone sloped my nice Cyrillic smallcaps without my noticing).

> whether there is any reason not to use roman all-caps instead.

You mean in a body of mixed-case italics? There is a good reason: it would appear to be slanting backwards, which is quite distracting to some people. See the English insert of tipoGrafica magazine.

hhp

>.. so bad example as John can be I suppose? ;)<

LOL!!!

On a magazine I used to work on, the house style was to have a section of copy start with a drop cap and the first few words set in small caps. Once in a while, some of those words needed to be italicized. As I recall, the face we used didn’t have italic small caps so we reluctantly had to fake it.

I think they can be handy to have around sometimes, even though they go against tradition. I have begun to include italic (and bold!) small caps when I include roman ones in my fonts (one family so far).

> What was that you were saying about typographic evangelism?

Touch

You mean in a body of mixed-case italics?

If I had a body of text that included an acronym or something else that textually required capitals letters, I would go to considerable lengths to avoid having to set it in italics. There are all sorts of text treatments — if one needed to set the text apart in some way — that I would try before putting myself in the position you describe. I really dislike all-cap italics.

I suppose it depends what part of the printing industry you work in. I work with books

i’m going to start posting ALL my questions to the General Discussion forum! People actually respond in here.

» even though they go against tradition. »

Actually, no. In complete fonts, Linotype (in the linecaster days) made up italic small caps usually duplexed with a display version of roman small caps. Using them was a pain, if you didn’t have a linomix system, you had to insert & distribute them by hand. Linotype Caslon Old Face is one example.

Just for the record …

Charles

I prefer fuller families to leaner ones when it comes to type. Something like italic SC isn’t a make-or-break, but it’s reassuring to know I could use it. Some families have ‘all your bases covered’ and I like that.

Usually, I am careful to pick a font that doesn’t lack feature I’ll need (when I’m freelancing). But, there are definitely times when I’ve avoided a font based on what it doesn’t have, particularly for larger projects that’ll span materials I can’t foresee.

That being said, I haven’t needed italic SC yet.

» even though they go against tradition. »

Actually, no. In complete fonts, Linotype (in the linecaster days) made up italic small caps…

In that case, I’ll say I’m doing them because it’s traditional. :-)

I don’t mind italic caps. I think they can look quite handsome. I find bold and bold italic (in serif faces) more irksome. I often opt to use a sans for boldface in text.

If I were a book designer, I might think differently.

Although Italic Small Caps were made in only a few isolated case by Merganthaler Linotype and Lanston Monotype, they do have a certain amount of historic legitimacy.

I can’t think of too many instances where I would use them myself, but i have made it a habit to add them to all of the text fonts that I have designed and produced for my own small font collection.

They do no harm, and I think it’s better that they are available rather than have designers “make” them up for a specific piece of typesetting. It’s simple enough to ignore them.

Jim Rimmer

I’m reading Peter Burnhill’s _Type spaces: in-house norms in the typography of Aldus Manutius_. It is an interesting study of the typographic work based on a few of the earliest of the Aldine books. The primary examples are those books showing the typographic treatment of a small roman cap with italic lowercase are predominant.

I’m finding this a difficult read but from what I can tell Burnhill is assuming the treatment is a single typeface design.

From my work on an extensive book detailing the UCLA collection, _The Aldine Press_, on which Nicolas Barker and Matthew Carter were collaborators, it is my understanding that the small x-height cap font and the italic font are two different typefaces, and were combined, partly because there was precedent (similar treatments can be found in earlier manuscript books), but mainly out of expediency, the matching italic caps had not been cast. I recall Barker correcting one of the bibliographers in this regard.

While I do not know of any Aldine treatments of italic small caps or all italic cap settings (just to stay on topic!), I was wondering if anyone had further information on this, as it seems some of the weight of Burnhill’s argument may be based on an erroneous assumption.

Though I do like his speculation that size names for typefaces may have sprung from the Aldine attempt at standardization.

Gerald Lange

I don’t recall this aspect of Burnhill’s book. I thought he mentioned someplace that the roman caps originated in a different face, but were (cast on the same body as the italic. I’m not sure how much of his argument would hang on this question, anyway.

First, I think they are useful. If someone is getting creative with a bibliography, for instance, and is setting the title of the book in italic smallcaps. Second, if the typeface has italics and it has smallcaps .. how much more difficult is it to give the user italic smallcaps?

I suppose .. however .. that I’d rather a very well completed typeface that has more figure options before I’d expect italic smallcaps.

i consider myself “special” … ehehe … ;^}

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quote:

Just not unicase, PLEEEEZE! :-/ Now that’s a nerve…

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Huh? Leave my unicase options alone, bozo!

What was that you were saying about typographic evangelism?

If you’re having italic old style figures — which is a minimum
requirement for any text face IMHO — you might as well throw in
the italic small caps. There are many instances where they’re
proven to be useful. I mean, I’m not really going to miss them if
they’re not present, but when they are I sure will use them.

Call me an opportunistic purist.

And what the hell’s wrong with swashes now?!

Always design with the special users in mind, Paul. You really
don’t want to piss us off.

Yeah, I noticed that too. This could have gone to Design, but
I reckon feedback wouldn’t have been that good.

BTW Hrant, it’s “ma ch