Fake small caps suck ass.
Small caps are tiny capital letters that are x-height (same height as a lowercase a or e) and look very classy when used correctly. They should be constructed to complement the regular caps in a font, with stroke weights the same as their big brothers.
Unfortunately, modern page layout programs have a "small caps" style button that simply reduces the size of the caps, and therefore reduces the stroke weight at the same time. This looks like crap. The Today Show and ESPN have switched to fake small caps for their onscreen graphics type, and it looks like ass.
Just another nail in the coffin of typography as art.
7 comments:
coffin? i thought there was already 4 feet of dirt on that ;)
At least it doesn't give you lower back pain
Dunno if the 'rent's going to leave a post here or not, but knowing him, I can kinda answer some of this.
I'll let him tell the story about Copperplate, but dad's never been that big a fan of The Company's typeface choices. For myself, being a typographer's son, I've never truly had a problem with it. There's a philosophy there I believe I'll expound in a post on my blog here in a moment...
He'll have to get into more of the technical stuff. I don't know if there's a difference betwee "true kerning" and the ordinary run-of-the-mill "kerning," but I know that some of the stuff was kerned. Caught me with this question about 3 years ago, and I could have said a lot more on the subject, but as it is, I just don't remember.
If I had to be nitpickish, though, I'd say most of the typefaces we used were difficult to read and didn't add much to the feel of the games. But style over substance was generally a theme.
As an aside, there has actually been a huge typographical discussion lately in the St. Louis area, as the Post Dispatch changed just about everything about the way the paper looks. If I could find a decent web article about it, I'd post it...
Dulcaoin, you have the advantage of me, as they say here in the South. You post as if you know me, but I do not know who you are. Email me if you wish, my address is in my profile, although the Spam Wall is high.
While I was involved with some of the decisions to choose fonts for games, I didn't work in Art so I can't answer your question about kerning in general.
I wonder what you mean by "true kerning." People who kern are called typographers, not "poor schlubs," and it's an art, not a task.
Vocabulary is not age-restricted.
Anything else?
Type is crazy stuff, hard and fast rules mixed with a person's opinion on what looks best is just asking for trouble. And with all the tools available nowadays for laying type you could drive yourself batty!
If I ever get an old letterpress like I want I'm calling that old typographer guy Shoco :-)
Dulcaoin: Your? Their? "Company" is singular so try "its".
I've always been a fan of Futura Condensed on the Trek cards. It's clean and allows for a lot of text, but I think there's been some tweaking of the kerning in the past, especially in light of the fact that Trek cards uses big words like personnel, equipment, and headquarters.
I hate hate hate the font on Rings cards. It's too fat and tried to hard to look like "fantasy". Otherwise, the alignment of attribute boosters is brilliant, even if it does result in an awkwardly narrow text box.
I hope you are well!
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