The quality of lettering is not as beautiful as the St.
The initial caps were written in after the book was printed. Figure 3 shows a page from the table of contents of an incunabula (an early printed book). Routine today, alphabetizing was not originally used to organize information in books. Initial caps were also used for mundane purposes: like indicating the alphabetical order of ideas. Of course, not all initial caps were as sexy as the image of St. (Image: Adrian Pingstone) Initial Caps In Printed Books
Note the subtle use of color to emphasize the start of a new sentence. (Image: Adrian Pingstone)įigure 2: Detail of Latin Bible, 1407. Thus, the letterer added strokes of red to the first letter of each sentence, giving visual separation to sounds represented on the page.įigure 1: Illuminated, Historiated Cap in a Latin Bible, 1407. Images related to the story served as memory aids for priests and monks who “read” the texts by flickering candle light.īut look closely (Figures 1 and 2) and you’ll see a far more subtle “initial cap.” The manuscript contains word spaces but does not contain a space between sentences. Historiated caps not only helped mark the start of a new idea in the text, they acted as place markers for significant places in the text. It is also illuminated it is decorated with gold in order to bring the light of God to the reader. Peter, and is thus historiated it relates to the text by showing a recognizable figure or scene. The initial cap ( P in the word Petrus) contains a picture of St. Figure 1 shows a manuscript (lettered by hand) bible from 1407. This in turn helped “readers” find their place in a text.Įven as late as the 15 th century, monks and scribes used initial caps to aid in visually “chunking” texts. Scribes used them to mark where a new section-a new idea-started in the text. Historically, initial caps were not just decorative elements. “Readers” lived in a primarily oral culture and verbalized the sounds to help them remember ideas and information already committed to memory. Written text represented sounds sounds held meaning. The written word was not “read” the way it is now. Early codex books (books with pages, as opposed to scrolls) did not have word spaces, sentence breaks, or paragraph breaks. Understanding The Difference Between Type And LetteringĮxamples of initial caps have been found dating back to the 4 th century CE.Weird And Wonderful Typography – Yet Still Illegible.5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers.But which method should we use? Which method remains consistent across browsers? Which is most accessible? Further Reading on SmashingMag: We can use an image of a letter, create a class to enlarge and place a letter, or use a first-child:first-letter to enlarge and place the first letter of the first paragraph.
How should we implement them? Just as scribes, artisans, and early printers had a variety of methods for creating initial capitals, we Web designers have multiple methods to choose from. Yet, front-end designers and clients often want to use drop caps as decorative elements. Unlike their historic counterparts, drop caps on the Web don’t add value in terms of usability or readability-and they are hard for Web developers to control, often rendering differently across browsers.
Illustrated caps increased usability by marking important passages and guiding readers through the text. The practice of using a large letter to mark the start of a text has been around for almost two thousand years.
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