[thelist] Type History (was: Contributions for an article wan ted)

[my aardvark account is on the fritz again, so you might see this reply
twice]

i'd love to see that report you reference about preferred case from 
the 30s... i can't find it here anywhere...

however, all my typography books, UI books, and personal 
experience has shown me that mixed case offers the best 
results... and i've seen many many studies to back this up...

regardless of *how* mixed case came into being, most of our 
audience (the ones who use our alphabet) are used to mixed 
case...

"The union of uppercase and lowercase roman letters - in which the 
upper case has seniority but the lower case has the power - has 
held firm for twelve centuries.   This constitutional monarchy of the 
alphabet is one of the most durable of European cultural 
institutions."

- The Elements of Typographic Style, section 3.4.1, by Robert 
Bringhurst

so, given the idea that the alphabet in its mixed case has been 
around for a millenium-plus, can't the argument be made that your 
average user has become accustomed to the mixed-case format 
we all see in magazines, books, newspapers, etc?

your argument that upper and lower case had different births is 
accurate, but predates the quote above by another millenium...

we all used to swing from trees and fling feces at each other when 
we were monkies, but we've rmoved the hand grips from our 
ceilings, haven't we?  the feces part still holds true, though...

> From: James Spahr <james@designframe.com>
> 
> Woa.
> 
> I don't think that's right at all. Studies have shown (the most famous
> being Herbert Bayer's research in the 1930's) that people are more
> comfortable reading what ever typeface/ capitalization scheme that
> they have grown accustom to.
> 
> Further more in the history of Typography - There use to be 2 distinct
> alphabets - capitals and lowercase. The letterforms of Capitals were
> design to be used with other capitals - and generally carved into
> rock. Lowercase was the alphabet of ink and paper.
> 
> Its only because there has been a long history of war and cultural
> exchange that the 2 have become one ...