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I have seen stuff like this:

BUT DON’T CAPITALIZE WHOLE PARAGRAPHS. THIS HABIT ORIGINATED WITH LAWYERS AND HAS INFECTED SOCIETY AT LARGE. THUS, MANY WRITERS STILL BELIEVE THAT CAPITALIZATION COMMUNICATES AUTHORITY AND IMPORTANCE. “HEY, LOOK HERE, I’VE GOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY! I DEMAND THAT YOU PAY ATTENTION!” BUT A PARAGRAPH SET IN ALL CAPS IS VERY HARD TO READ. AND IT’S EVEN HARDER TO READ IF IT’S BOLD. AS THE PARAGRAPH WEARS ON, READERS FATIGUE. INTEREST WANES. HOW ABOUT YOU? DO YOU ENJOY READING THIS? I DOUBT IT. BUT I REGULARLY SEE CAPITALIZED PARAGRAPHS THAT ARE MUCH LONGER THAN THIS. DO YOUR READERS A FAVOR. STOP CAPITALIZING WHOLE PARAGRAPHS.

I agree that it's hard to read, but perhaps there is a way to make typography of all-caps look nice in some way. That's all I'm wondering, if there are any good examples of it, or if it's a strict all around no-go because it's hard to read and "shouts". But perhaps if it's small caps, it might work.

Wondering what the technical reason is that it looks bad, or perhaps even a technical reason why it could be good.

It would be interesting to see an entire book written in caps, I am not sure I have seen one.


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  • The Russian books I've seen used small caps. From what I understand, the Cyrillic alphabet has lowercase letters, but they're generally only used in hand-written text.
    – supercat
    Commented May 16, 2020 at 19:37

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An immediate historical example that comes to my mind is the Peignot font designed in 1937 by Cassandre

Peignot

...is notable for not having a traditional lowercase, but in its place a "multi-case" combining traditional lowercase and small capital characters

It doesn't communicate much authority in my opinion, if so it wouldn't have been used in the final credits of this famous film.


Generally, display fonts don't usually have lowercase characters due to their origin: the big signs. There are many examples searching "display":

Display fonts at Myfonts.com

A slightly more generic case of display fonts are the Tuscan fonts

tuscan

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  • I like that lowercase g! Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 16:53
  • Please list other examples, this is great, didn't find any here. Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 16:54

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