Home› Type Business
Options

Fonts with capital letters slightly less than full height

J_TillmanJ_Tillman Posts: 12
in Type Business
I'm interested in looking at fonts with the capital letters slightly shorter than full height. Specifically text fonts for book printing. Serif or sans. I am not specifying a subject matter. Here are a few examples to clarify:
Marco https://www.type-together.com/marco-font
Greta Text https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/greta-text
Gentium Book https://software.sil.org/gentium/
Dolly Pro https://www.underware.nl/fonts/dolly/features/

In the past decades I've looked at some of this kind of font, but I wasn't interested and did not note or remember them. But now I am interested. Is there a proper commonly-accepted term for these fonts? Is there a good way to search or a good search term to use? Is there any kind of existing list of this type of font somewhere? Failing any of these, please feel free to list your favorites, if you don't mind. Thank you.

Tagged:

Comments

  • Options
    Craig EliasonCraig Eliason Posts: 1,404
    edited April 19
    It's a little ambiguous whether you're referring to:
    • fonts with the "regular" capital letters are on the short side (which you could describe as fonts with a "low cap height," or even fonts with a "tall x-height" coming from the other direction), or
    • fonts equipped with smaller alternatives to the regular capitals (which you could describe as "small caps"). 
    When we learn how to write letters in school, we often are taught to make capitals and ascenders the same height, and often 2x the x-height, but in typography neither of those ratios is very common. There's not really such a thing as "full height."
  • Options
    J_TillmanJ_Tillman Posts: 12
    Craig, it's the first option you listed. Also, the term x-height is usually reference to ascender height, not capital letter height.
  • Options
    Nick ShinnNick Shinn Posts: 2,148
    edited April 19
    Capital letters are always full height—it’s x-height and ascenders that deviate!

    In other words, one would generally describe a typeface with a “small/large x-height” or with “ascenders taller than cap height”.
    (There are a very few types with ascenders shorter than cap height.)

    To be really picky, one should probably mention both x-height and ascender height.

    **

    Notably, Greta was designed for newspapers, and that is likely a good genre to investigate for your purposes. I’ve designed several news text fonts, which I will take the liberty of promoting here, e.g.  Goodchild (a “Jenson”), Pratt, and Worldwide.

    Don’t forget the ITC versions of the classics, Garamond, Caslon, Cheltenham, etc.—ITC gave them the small-x treatment.

    For a sans serif with big x-height, FF Clan really pushes it!
  • Options
    Craig EliasonCraig Eliason Posts: 1,404
    I assume you mean "large" x treatment for ITC Nick. 
    Rosetta's Skolar might fit. 
  • Options
    George ThomasGeorge Thomas Posts: 634
    J_Tillman said:
    [...] Also, the term x-height is usually reference to ascender height, not capital letter height.
    No, that is not correct. It refers to the distance from the baseline to the top of a straight-top lowercase letter with no ascender, usually the /x.

  • Options
    John ButlerJohn Butler Posts: 251
    Don’t forget Amstelvar with variable ascenders, descenders and cap height.
  • Options
    Cristóbal HenestrosaCristóbal Henestrosa Posts: 70
    edited April 20
    Probably the first one: Francesco Griffo’s italic. http://www.griffoggl.com/en/corsivi/
  • Options
    Thomas PhinneyThomas Phinney Posts: 2,761
    From the typefaces referred to in the question, I infer that what the questioner is asking about is typefaces with ascenders that go significantly above the cap height.

    Which is also what I would call them.  :)
  • Options
    TimAhrensTimAhrens Posts: 48
    edited April 20
    Fira Sans come to my mind. I used to have a Firefox phone and whenever I saw my name in the e-mail app I was disturbed by the dot of the i floating much higher than the bar of the T (which is a question related to tall ascenders, of course).
  • Options
    Yves MichelYves Michel Posts: 155
    You could also look at LD Fabiol Pro from The Lazydogs Typefoundry by designer Robert Strauch: https://lazydogs.de/families/details/6
  • Options
    J_TillmanJ_Tillman Posts: 12
    Thanks to everyone who has commented. Very interesting and I’m checking things out. I will keep checking back here.
  • Options
    David SudweeksDavid Sudweeks Posts: 34
    edited April 23
    Dan Reynolds’s Malabar is my favorite and possibly the clearest example of a “low cap height” design.
    https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/4260/malabar
  • Options
    Jacques Le BaillyJacques Le Bailly Posts: 88
    My Crimson Pro has what you are looking for :)
    https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Crimson+Pro?query=crimson
  • Options
    Ofir ShavitOfir Shavit Posts: 397
    edited April 23
    Since Hebrew script don't have UC and LC, I tend to create my Latin included Hebrew fonts with Low UC...

    Hafringe - Extremely low UC
    Ragil
    Stopper
    Meyravi

    All have editable text fields for exploration.

  • Options
    pieter van Rosmalenpieter van Rosmalen Posts: 11
    Nitti and Nitti Grotesk are examples of low capitals:
Sign In or Register to comment.