Why Top Designers Use Uppercase

The fashion and function of uppercase in your design (without all the yelling)

Read time: 2 minutes

Imagine your design was more neat and tidy, balanced, and attractive.

Handsome…

Beautiful…

Perhaps a ā€œnot badā€ 🧐

Uppercase Enters the Room

Using uppercase in things like titles, headings, buttons, and small details gives your design more:

  • emphasis

  • alignment

  • balance

  • contrast

  • hierarchy

āœ“ This is an arrangement of desirable (alluring, if you will) qualities in design.

Pro tip: Sans serif fonts in uppercase usually look way better than serif fonts.

Examples of Uppercase in the Wild

Gary Vee’s designer makes great use of uppercase on his website, including every word in his opt-in CTA.

Simple and confident — just like the man himself.

Aries Moross is a creative director and designer who knows a thing or two about using uppercase.

BTW, these big words scroll across the screen like news tickers.

In 2021, Ad World launched this campaign for their conference — and there’s not a single lowercase letter in their ads.

Ad World has such kick-ass design šŸ”„

How Can Uppercase Be So Amazing?!

Simple.

It’s organized, self-assured, and has lots of nice straight lines.

Uppercase letters look similar, and they all have the same height.

This creates an aligned and unified appearance.

Uppercase text is a nice contrast to lowercase text, which has more ragged edges.

Uppercase is also great for bold titles on multiple lines.

Lowercase letters require more line height, and they generally don’t look as good when using thick fonts.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Want to grab your viewers immediate attention?

→ Use a thick, bold font.

We see this in ads, sales, announcements, and warnings… pretty much any text that says, ā€œYou need to look at me now!ā€

Want something a little more modest and sexy?

→ Use a slender font.

Just look at nearly every fashion brand ever.

Even Small Type Gets In on the Action

Uppercase does a great job of drawing the eye at small sizes.

So your viewer gets all of the important details.

Lowercase in the same places would mean increasing the font size.

Magazine-style sites like Wired have tons of little headings, labels, and author names.

…uppercase is the right answer for these.

The Layout Hero We All Need

Uppercase is so versatile, you can use it almost anywhere:

  • Site navigation

  • Hero titles

  • Subtitles

  • By lines

  • Buttons

  • Section titles

  • Product names

  • Form labels

  • Diagram labels

  • Table headings

Don’t Be Yellin’ at People Now 🤨

The one place you shouldn’t use it is long body text.

Anything longer than one sentence is a no-no.

That would be yelling at your viewers.

And it hurts to read.

MY FREEAKING EEEEEEYES!! 😳

Try using MORE UPPERCASE!

It’ll make you look more professional and organized.

And help associate your brand with clarity, competence, and style.

This is why the world’s top designers use it.

Got any brand design questions?

Reply to any of my emails or find me on X.

šŸ¤– Robert

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