Letter Choice: The UX of Uppercase and Lowercase

Recently Target made a huge decision.

And I’m not talking about their admirable stance on transgender bathroom use.

They decided to change all of the letters in TARGET to lowercase.

Notice the lowercase consistency in the “we’re hiring!”

In the picture above, you can see the lowercase version as well as the original lowercase version on the storefront windows.

In a similar, drastic change, Chobani, the yogurt maker, decided to change their wordmark. What used to be a geometric sans-serif in all uppercase became a custom serif typeface with only the first letter capitalized (like regular English!).

Left side — Original, Right side — New

These decisions demonstrate a trend toward a deeper consideration of the UX of wordmarks — and more interestingly, a willingness to make a change to something that used to be considered relatively immutable.

Even companies like JCPenney have attempted this change, although it’s not enough of a change to prevent them from closing multiple stores in 2018.