Upper/Lower case text

[djn]

We are currently are trying to establish our standards for Revit, and have sparked a great debate on whether we should switch from all upper case to upper and lower case (Sentence case) text. I thought it would be helpful to get some input from outside our office. If you want to post what style your firm uses, or what you prefer that would be great.

[aaronrumple]

I think the industry is still very much upper case. I perfer mixed case as the first firm I worked for used both upper and lower case hand lettering. The drawings looked great.

[ford347]

I use all upper case in details, plan notes or anything to do with my building model or CD. As far as legends, general notes, things of that nature, I usually switch to lower case.....basically use lower case in paragraph form. I find when you are reading through all the monotonous noted information it's nicer to be reading it in lower case rather than upper case. That's just me though.

Josh

[Henry D]

There was a poll taken on this see link.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=35882&highlight=caps+lettering

There are those who say that there is only one way to do things, like dimensioning, lettering (caps, no caps, hand looking lettering) etc., but I have seen so many different office standards that work well that I think that the main goal of an office standard is to have a consistent, logical and clear presentation of the information on CD's.

I personally like the look of lower and upper case, and I find it easier to read.

[Beaglemommy]

I prefer the look of upper and lower. BUT when printing half size or less than half size, say in 8.5x11 or 11x17 reports, upper case is the way to go. Especially when/if duplicating copies or copies of copies. I also find that you can have consistency when it comes to abbreviations when using upper case.

[djn]

Thanks for the input and link to the poll. We are considering going upper and lower case, which in nice for reading lengthy sheet notes or general notes, but like you said is harder to read on a half size set, and it looks strange for short callouts that aren't really sentences.

[jeff.95551]

I think the responder who uses mixed case for sentences and all caps for callouts has got a good point. I've found that the obsolete 'archquik' style fonts are hard to read small case reduced, but as the hand-lettering guys retire and the rest of us move to Arial or some other time-tested and universally easy-to-read font that issue will go away. The challenge for callouts is how do you know what to capitalize when every word is an abbreviation.

Personally, I'd be happy with any style that I thought the contractors would actually read. In Arizona these days that seems to mean espanol... ;)

[ron.sanpedro]

I think the responder who uses mixed case for sentences and all caps for callouts has got a good point. I've found that the obsolete 'archquik' style fonts are hard to read small case reduced, but as the hand-lettering guys retire and the rest of us move to Arial or some other time-tested and universally easy-to-read font that issue will go away. The challenge for callouts is how do you know what to capitalize when every word is an abbreviation.



I am leaning away from abbreviations too. As with all caps, abbreviations where just adopted as a way to hand letter both fast and legibly. I find that standard caps and full words actually is much easier and faster to read and understand, while being just as fast or faster to type. And that is what matters in the end.
The issue of half size sets is an issue, but only for as long as clients keep asking for half size reference sets. Eventually we will have full size reference sets in PDF or DWF format, the half size set as a concept goes away, and the only thing keeping us doing all caps is people who "Always did it that way." To whom I say, knock yourself out, but I am putting shadows on my CD elevations too, and the fact that I didn't used to just isn't going to hold me back ;)

Gordon

[ford347]

Good point with abbrevs.......(no pun there:) ) My estimator is always screaming about all the abbreviations he sees in misc. CD's.....everybody will abbreviate differently it seems and half the time the abbrev. used isn't on the abbrev. list anyway. Just spell it out.

I'm putting shadows on the elevations too....makes it really easy to conceptualize the depth of the building etc.. Hey, the tools are just a click away, why not use them!! I agree.

Josh