I’ll get straight to the point here: all caps should hardly ever be used in text and bold should never be used. Never, ever. If you want to emphasize something, use italics. You’ll end up with a more polished-looking finished product.
Graphic designers who have access to extended font sets (I don’t on this blog, so please use your imagination), use small caps for common abbreviations (like 11:00 AM), initialisms (e.g.: TV or UFO) and proper acronyms (UNESCO or NATO). Well set type rarely includes all caps beyond two-letter geographical initialisms (Mexico, D.F. or Washington D.C.) or proper name initialisms (RFK or MLK).
The temptation to use theatrical typography is widespread with so many common folks now having access to so many typestyles, but as the great typographer Robert Bringhurst says, “most writing and typography remain contentedly abstract.” In other words, writing does not communicate more successfully if it is accompanied by bold, all caps, and exciting fonts.
January 7, 2008 at 3:20 pm
You are SO RIGHT! (Although, unfortunately, in blog comments, having no italics (or even bold) at one’s disposal, one has to resort to caps for emphasis . . . !)
January 7, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I insert the html tags for italics on blog comments, but it’s laborious (and I have fat finger syndrome). Using all caps would be a lot more efficient.
January 29, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I’ll welcome the day WordPress puts html buttons on the reply box.
January 30, 2008 at 11:02 am
Good idea. How tough could it be?