In Game/App Copy Styling Conundrum
Hi guys, I'm looking for grammar nazis and copywriters, especially if you're experienced with in-app/game copy.
The project I'm working on has, up until now, used title case for ALL button copy: "Log In", "Did I Win?" etc. Most guides I've consulted said this is perfectly fine. However, our project has a bit of flavour to it. We have a button line that goes "Eiza, try again". I'm leaning towards title case, regardless of the comma. Many others say it looks odd that way. I like title case for the visual traction and visibility it gives, and would like to keep it consistent, but this #%&^ing button is driving me nuts. I'd also like to point out that copy in websites and apps often ignores standard grammatical rules in favour of flavour and comprehension (titles, even as full sentences, don't take periods, for example). So the way I see it, my options are:
a) Make it title case (screw em', these are MY consistent rules)
b) Introduce sentence case globally for buttons (Windows certainly does this, even if I don't like how it looks personally)
c) Delete the comma and make it title case (does that REALLY need to be punctuated?)
d) Make this button sentence case, seeing as it is quite sentence-y (but then it's the only button that looks that way and my OCD flares up)
I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts on this.
The project I'm working on has, up until now, used title case for ALL button copy: "Log In", "Did I Win?" etc. Most guides I've consulted said this is perfectly fine. However, our project has a bit of flavour to it. We have a button line that goes "Eiza, try again". I'm leaning towards title case, regardless of the comma. Many others say it looks odd that way. I like title case for the visual traction and visibility it gives, and would like to keep it consistent, but this #%&^ing button is driving me nuts. I'd also like to point out that copy in websites and apps often ignores standard grammatical rules in favour of flavour and comprehension (titles, even as full sentences, don't take periods, for example). So the way I see it, my options are:
a) Make it title case (screw em', these are MY consistent rules)
b) Introduce sentence case globally for buttons (Windows certainly does this, even if I don't like how it looks personally)
c) Delete the comma and make it title case (does that REALLY need to be punctuated?)
d) Make this button sentence case, seeing as it is quite sentence-y (but then it's the only button that looks that way and my OCD flares up)
I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts on this.
Comments
@Elyaradine Incidentally, the current font being used for buttons only has uppercase glyphs. The product is meant to be skinnable though, so would like to have this problem sorted for any future iterations which may or may not use a different font. I think your solution is probably the most efficient though.
For now, we're going with title case for ALL buttons and ALL short headings (even the headings and buttons ending in question marks). This is my first copy editing assignment after complaining a lot as a designer about inconsistencies in treatment. It's kind of fun getting into the intricacies of cascading rule sets for copy styling (this rule applies in all cases of A except where B is involved, etc.), but it is keeping me quite busy.