Seeking typography feedback -- Small-caps alternative

[GrannyGrump]

I am working on some humor collections that include some parody "screenplays". In the printed books, these use lots of small-caps.

Often I have embedded small-caps fonts, to use for very short phrases, such as titles, signatures, etc. I have used semi-serif, such as Fontin or Marcellus, which *sort-of-kind-of-but-not-really* will go with the user's choice of serif or sans-serif body font.

However, these books have entire sentences and paragraphs in small-caps. The embedded font does not look happy in such large swathes. I do not want to use fake small-caps with multiple spans for large and small font sizes (those multiple spans break search, and display fails on some readers).

As you can see by the screen-shots of the p-books, small-caps are used for character names, and for "movie captions." Italics are already in extensive use for "stage directions" and other descriptions.

So, should I replace the small-caps with ALL-caps? With BOLD?
Or just ignore all that, and simply use normal text?

In situations like this, I should probably ask myself, "What would Hitch do?" The answer floats back on the echoes, "Hitch wouldn't let herself get involved with such a diabolical choice..."
.

[pdurrant]

font-variant: small-caps

is valid ePub 2 CSS. I'd use that, even though the Adobe renderer doesn't obey it. Someday there will be an ePub renderer which will do it properly, and in the meantime, it's not vital.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

However, these books have entire sentences and paragraphs in small-caps. The embedded font does not look happy in such large swathes.

How about using some kind of Comic font or, if that's too anachronistic for you, maybe time-period fonts that were primarily used for billboards, magazine ads etc.?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

font-variant: small-caps

If you can leave with its having no effect, I agree. For the odd small-cap signature or something like that, that's what I'd choose.

For character names, I'd choose bold. They are short and mark the beginning of each dialogue part, kind of like a bullet would do, so bold is probably not too much.

For "movie captions", you probably want them to stand out somehow, and bold would be too disruptive... An embedded font with some personality could work. Or maybe a grayed-out bold, or a gray background (but playing with "colors" is always risky).

[JSWolf]

font-variant: small-caps will not work on most Readers or programs in use for displaying ePub as ADE/RMDSK is the most widely used and small-caps is not supported. So using it even though it's not supported is a bad idea.

There are two options. One is to embed a base font and a small caps font to go with it. The other is to use something like...

.smallcaps {
font-size: .75em
}

That will simulate smallcaps. You just S<span class="smallcaps">MALLCAPS</span>

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So using it even though it's not supported is a bad idea.

Only if it's a vital bit of rendering.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Only if it's a vital bit of rendering.

Obviously you want smallcaps because you are coding for it. So why bother to code for it when it won't work for most people?

[doubleshuffle]

Granny, the free, open license version of Alegreya comes with a nice, neutral (serif) smallcaps font. I think it works nice with most serif fonts I have tried, even if you have longer bits of text, like in your examples. I would never read literature in sans-serif though, so I haven't tried how it plays with sans-serif fonts.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Granny, the free, open license version of Alegreya comes with a nice, neutral (serif) smallcaps font. I think it works nice with most serif fonts I have tried, even if you have longer bits of text, like in your examples. I would never read literature in sans-serif though, so I haven't tried how it plays with sans-serif fonts.

It's a good idea but, it will look awful on an eInk screen.

The version of Charis SIL I've modified for eInk comes with a smallcapsversion and it looks good with ePub and KF8.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/om...L_-_Hinted.rar

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's a good idea but, it will look awful on an eInk screen.

Well, that's a matter of taste, I guess. I think it looks very nice.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The version of Charis SIL I've modified for eInk comes with a smallcapsversion and it looks good with ePub and KF8.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/om...L_-_Hinted.rar

Thanks!

[GrannyGrump]

Well, a lively little discussion has been going on while my back was turned.

I really don't want to embed a body font, I feel guilty enough that I even embed decorative fonts.

I tried the fake small caps, and though it looks pretty ok, the span epidemic is really horrid, because there must be a span for every word (most are capitalized, and spaces and punctuation should be left full-size.) There are fifty spans in this small segment.

<p>“T<span class="smcaps">WENTY</span> Y<span class="smcaps">EARS</span> A<span class="smcaps">FTER</span> .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. H<span class="smcaps">ENRY</span> A<span class="smcaps">DAMS</span> I<span class="smcaps">S</span> N<span class="smcaps">O</span> L<span class="smcaps">ONGER</span> Y<span class="smcaps">OUNG</span>, <span class="smcaps">BUT</span> <span class="smcaps">IN</span> H<span class="smcaps">IS</span> H<span class="smcaps">EART</span> L<span class="smcaps">IES</span> S<span class="smcaps">TILL</span> <span class="smcaps">THE</span> H<span class="smcaps">UNGER</span> <span class="smcaps">FOR</span> E<span class="smcaps">DUCATION</span>. G<span class="smcaps">OING</span> F<span class="smcaps">ORWARD</span>, E<span class="smcaps">VER</span> F<span class="smcaps">ORWARD</span>, H<span class="smcaps">E</span> R<span class="smcaps">EALIZES</span> <span class="smcaps">AS</span> N<span class="smcaps">EVER</span> B<span class="smcaps">EFORE</span> <span class="smcaps">THAT</span> W<span class="smcaps">ITHOUT</span> T<span class="smcaps">HOUGHT</span> <span class="smcaps">IN</span> <span class="smcaps">THE</span> U<span class="smcaps">NIT</span>, T<span class="smcaps">HERE</span> C<span class="smcaps">AN</span> B<span class="smcaps">E</span> <span class="smcaps">NO</span> U<span class="smcaps">NITY</span>. T<span class="smcaps">HOUGHT</span> A<span class="smcaps">LONE</span> I<span class="smcaps">S</span> F<span class="smcaps">ORM</span>. M<span class="smcaps">IND</span> <span class="smcaps">AND</span> U<span class="smcaps">NITY</span> F<span class="smcaps">LOURISH</span> <span class="smcaps">OR</span> P<span class="smcaps">ERISH</span> T<span class="smcaps">OGETHER</span>.”</p>

I tried an embedded decorative smallcaps font, an embedded monospace font using "Title Case" (Camel Caps), and All-caps using the body font (I found another place in the book using all-caps).



At the moment, wishing to lean towards READABILITY rather than PRETTY, also known as "Mimic the Print Book", I am leaning towards Monospace in normal Sentence Case. (Camel Caps are hard on the eyes in large quantities, I think.)



What do you think?

[doubleshuffle]

Well, it's definitely all a matter of taste. For me, none of your monospace examples even come close to the decorative smallcaps. Seems I'm in the Pretty camp. (And no, I'm not pretty camp...)

ETA: Have you tried the smallcap font in regular instead of italics?

[GrannyGrump]

The decorative Devroye smallcaps font that I tried before, only comes in that italic version.

Here I have used Andada slab-serif smallcaps in regular (I used this elsewhere for chapter titles, etc), the second segment in the middle of the page is Andada SC italic, and the third segment is Alegreya. Screen-shots show Serif and Sans-serif body font.



Looks like the Andada font weight blends better with the Sigil previewer body fonts, but I don't know yet how it will look on a device.

[Jellby]

I'd choose a decorative font, smallcaps or not, not italic. With "decorative" I mean something that's relatively unlikely to look like a wrong match with the text font.

[JSWolf]

If you use a sans-serif font (font-family: sans-serif) in place of the smallcaps, you won't have to emebed anything as you'll be used whatever the default sans-serif font is.