2.2 Case
There are two different alphabets in the roman lettering tradition. Lower case is derived from the Carolingian minuscule. Upper case is derived from the Roman capitalis and is also called majuscule. Upper case has been found to be less legible than lower case (Poulton, 1967; Breland and Kruse Breland, 1944). It is assumed that capitals are less distinctive because of their uniform height and a lack of unique crevices in the word as a ‘LINE’. As a result, Poulton (1967) claims, upper case words have to be inspected longer before they are identified correctly. Spencer, Reynolds and Coe (1973) report that there is an exception to the superiority of lower case characters. Those lower case alphabets which do not posess ascenders and descenders are less legible than capitals. Based on these findings, they propose the design of a single alphabet consisting of the best elements of the lower and upper case alphabets.

Like italics, upper case lettering is used for emphasis. In many languages, upper case is also used to identify the beginning of a new sentence. German printed text is an example of a very dominant usage of capitals; the first letter of every noun is capitalized. According to McAteer (1992), upper case lettering takes a modulatory role in text. This means, that the content of a word is not in contrast with other messages in a sentence, as is the case for italics, but is simply stressed for clarity. Moreover, the individual word is emphasized without drawing attention to the rest of the sentence as well. Phillips (1979) suggests that the search for important words in a text is facilitated by printing the initial letter in upper case; capitalizing all other letters as well would not add to the effect of emphasis in any application of type. However, Rudnicky and Kolers (1984) found that word recognition is more difficult when upper and lower case are both used within one word. This may be because the two different alphabets provide not 26, but 52 unique characters with which the printed shape can be identified. They stress that typographic integrity should be maintained, meaning that either all minuscule or all majuscules should be used.

Thus, it seems that the aims of emphasis and legibility can not be achieved both at once. In one case, recognition of grouped letters as a meaningful word is essential, whereas the other case demands that a particular word is easily found amidst a mass of visual information, such as on road maps. This results, for example, in a different conclusion when selecting type for books than for warning signs. One would think that a compromise may be found in the use of small capitals. These are slightly lower than true capitals, but have the same basic shape. Using a true capital for the initial letter of a word and small capitals for the other letters could possibly facilitate word search while maintaining TYPOGRAPHIC INTEGRITY. However, no scientific evidence exists to confirm this assumption.

The general conclusion is that the current use of capitals in books is probably the most effective way; signs and labels consisting of many words are best put in lower case with capital emphasis on the initial letter of key words.