20 May Typeface trends – flares to return?

The same might apply when it comes to fashionable deployment of typefaces/styles. One of our creative staff recently produced a brochure spread design for a tourism project and I was astonished to discover the use of ‘caps and small caps’. Following the absence of this style for several years (caps and small caps styles were once popular and commonplace) the result looked to me dated and ridiculous.

It was hard to imagine a time when this treatment would have looked ‘cool’. Conversely, even today mainstream software still gives us a styling option of ‘caps and small caps’!

However when one thinks of the rotation of fashion and the persistent return to the forefront of such classic clothing as ‘flares’, perhaps my reaction was short sighted – maybe I should give our creative people more credit – after all the return of ‘caps and small caps’ styling could be just around the corner – or better still why don’t we start the trend again?!

I still don’t like ’em though.

As a reference, you may find this article, albeit from 2006, amusing:
‘Typefaces no-one gets fired for using’