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For Your Typographic
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Want to get your text off to a great start? Try using initial letters.
An initial letter (or initial cap, as they are also called) is an enlarged letter that is used as the first character of a paragraph. It can sit above, below, to the left of, or even behind the body text, and can be set in a contrasting weight, style or color. Initial letters can be:
- Dropped (this is called a “drop cap”) so that the baseline of the drop cap is below the baseline of the body text.
- Raised, so that the top of the initial is above the height of the body text.
- Boxed.
- Reversed out of a background shade.
- Overlapped, so that the initial cap actually overlaps the body copy. Keep the color and/or tint light enough so readability isn’t impaired.
How to set your initial letter is one question; which letter to set is another! You’re not limited to the same typeface as your body copy. In fact, decorative, calligraphic and ornate type styles can be very effective. You can even use a lowercase character as your “cap”–consider it typographic license!
The key to using initial letters successfully is proper alignment. If the character is intended to appear flush left with the text, it should align optically rather than mechanically. Certain characters, such as those with rounds (C, O, S, etc.), diagonals (A, V, W, Y) and characters with serifs (which get proportionally larger with size), should be pulled out to the left a bit to align visually.
If the initial cap is the first letter of a word (as opposed to a single-letter word, such as “A” or “I”), make you sure you set the rest of the word close enough to the initial so that the eye reads it as a single word.
Other things to remember: don’t repeat the letter you use as the initial cap at the beginning of the body text, and don’t use too many initial caps in one layout. In fact, one per length of copy or long section is enough. And, as always, readability should never be sacrificed for style. Now you’ re ready to get started with initial letters!