So I get it: most people do not see the difference between fake small caps and real, designed ones. Otherwise they wouldn’t be so prevalent. So I thought I’d show everyone what the big deal is with an exaggerated example—fake, real, and fake exaggerated:
The issue is with the relative width of the stroke between the big and small caps. In true small caps, the stroke width is the same. In fake ones, the letters are simply scaled down in both width and height so the stroke is proportionally smaller. This makes the big caps look bolder than the small ones.
The thing I don't understand is that the computer already knows how to adjust the weight of most fonts. Computers can do fake bold (which is what your are seeing in the third line above). And for most fonts, there are already at least a normal and bold weight. These could easily be used to interpolate different weights. It seems to me that it wouldn't be too difficult to do fake caps with a proper stroke width.
Comments