![]() Economy is paramount in case stylings, and therefore space ought to be saved by the judicious use of an ampersand. The two defendants’ names are joined by the written out ‘and’, which is an error. This is a legitimate practice, standard in many jurisdictions, but is generally deprecated in the UK for legal citations, and the standard is generally for open punctuation (‘R’ and ‘v’). The title also makes use of closed punctuation (‘R.’ and ‘v.’). Affine transformation is all well and good, but no amount of linear algebra can compensate for a separately cut small capitals face, as many fine typefaces (free and paid) have. The giveaway is the height of the small-capitals, which is too high for true small-capitals, as well as their identical composition to the capital characters. This is worsened by the fact that the small-capitals appear like the fake small-capitals done in Word, rather than a dedicated face (like might come with a professional cut of Times, such as Times Linotype, favoured by your correspondent). As it is, the long string of scrunched together (note the inadequate letter-spacing) small capitals is needlessly difficult to read and has the amateurish look of many poorly composed law journals (which often over-use bold small capitals). The best header would be simply italic, but bold alone would do as well. They look ugly and unwieldy, and the variation in letter-height ruins any æsthetic niceness from small capitals alone. There is also the problem that mixed small-capitals (lowercase and uppercase side by side), in particular, are unsuited to titles. If extra importance is needed, it is better to increase the size of the text rather than to resort to double emphasis. One form of emphasis (be it bold, small-capitals, or italic) is sufficient to get the attention of the reader. The general rule in typography is that double emphasis is to be avoided, because it distracts the reader. The title of the case and sentencing remarks is given in bold, small-capitals: I beg the forgiveness of my readers for any rôle I may have played in this travesty, and I hope most fervently that I am being am exaggerating my own importance and the horrifying decision to use this heading was reached without consulting my input. This was foolishly and inexcusably naïve of me to have such expectations of public typography. It did not occur to me for a moment that a suggestion to revise with an eye to amelioration a point of typography and design would be taken as a spur to make the worst possible decision. Of course, it was not my intent that my correspondence should be a spur to worsening the heading. I received a polite acknowledgement in response, and, not long after, some (though not all) sentencing remarks began to use this monstrosity. Some time later, I sent a scrupulously polite e-mail to the web-masters of the judiciary.uk website, humbly suggesting they upgrade the image header, and offered as a template my own upgrade of the previous HM Judiciary heading. 3 ‘At least use a high quality heading’, Note of 17 October 2022. Specifically, in a previous Note, I lamented the pixellated header of sentencing remarks, and re-mastered it to be more pleasing and worthy of the dignity of HM Judiciary. Yet, here, my dear reader, your correspondent must confess that he may have inadvertently played some part in the creation of a great and profound evil, viz the header immediately above. This publication seeks to have a practical and tangible influence on legal style. Gentle reader, gaze upon it, if you dare: We are greeted by a ‘logo’ which is meaningless and generic, takes up nearly the entire text-width, mistakes the name of the judiciary (it is HM Judiciary), reduces the Royal Arms to a barely visible afterthought, and by use of some variant (I believe) of Transport looks like a highway sign. The beginning of the sentencing remarks is deeply unpromising. ![]() close analysis of a published judicial act. So it is that this publication returns to its bread and butter: 2 Those who abstain from gluten are invited to insert their own metaphor here. provide an excellent opportunity for analysis. judge’) in the murder case of R v Al-Jundi & El-Abboud, 1 Sentencing Remarks of 1 February 2023 available at this link. ![]() The recent sentencing remarks of the Recorder of London, HHJ Lucraft KC (hereinafter, ‘the hon. T he recent trend towards the greater publication of sentencing remarks is a boon to the analysis of legal style (as well as to open justice).
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