Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

Caps vs. Lowercase

Text set in all capital letters (all caps) is more difficult to read. We don’t read letter by letter—we read in phrases. When you see a word, you don’t sound it out letter by letter, do you? No, you glance at the word, recognize it, and move on. A significant factor in our recognition of whole words at a time is the shape of the word. But when words are set in all caps, every word has a rectangular shape and we have to go back to reading the letters.

Now, although all caps are definitely more difficult to read, especially when there is a lot of text, sometimes you want the rectangular shapes of all caps. If that is an appropriate solution for your piece, do it freely. Just keep in mind that you are making a choice to exchange ...