We Choose the Uppercase P: A Case Study in Strategic Incoherence

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
~Susan Kare

And sometimes, it just doesn’t.

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Author’s Note:

All characters and decisions in this post are fictional. Any resemblance to actual committees, formatting decisions, or style guide tragedies is entirely coincidental. Though if it does feel familiar…we see you, and we’re sorry.

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The Beginning

Like many organizations striving for that je ne sais quoi after a major rebrand, Firm X set out to standardize and streamline its proposal process. It was a noble goal: unify templates, clean up styles, and build a scalable system to support collaboration across teams with varying levels of design expertise.

To lead the initiative, Firm X leaned on its seasoned design professionals, those who had spent decades building the infrastructure that carried the organization through digital transformation, accessibility adoption, and the gradual retirement of the “proposal-by-Word” era.

Among the group's many tasks was the goal, simple in concept if not in execution, to create a structured, logical style system grounded in industry standards and typographic clarity, serving designers and non-designers alike.

And then came the uppercase P.

What began as a lowercase p, the long-standing convention for denoting paragraph styles in typography, was soon deemed "confusing" by stakeholders unfamiliar with logic or critical thought. "It just looks wrong," someone said. "What if people don’t understand it?" said another.

Despite documentation, examples, and gentle explanations of why lowercase is not just standard but functional, the lowercase p was voted off the island.

From there, the foundation cracked. Whatever the intentions, the systems was DOA.

This was no longer just about one letter, it was about the symbolic unraveling of system logic in favour of emotional comfort.

To commemorate this proud moment of anti-standardization, I now offer the following (entirely fictional) case study.

And what sets you apart from other firms we’re considering for this project?

Ah. Glad you asked.

At Firm X, we pride ourselves on bold, visionary decisions that separate us from the herd. Take, for example, our most recent innovation: we brashly adopted an uppercase P to denote our paragraph styles in InDesign, flying in the face of industry standards, common sense, and semantic clarity.

Yes. You heard that right. Uppercase. P. Goddammit.

While competitors cling to scalable, globally recognized conventions, we’ve chosen defiance. It’s our hill, and by God, we’re dying on it.

It's a strategic move that places us in direct opposition to centuries of typographic logic and the entire global design community. While lesser firms cling to dated ideals such as clarity, consistency, and automation compatibility, we chose disruption. We don’t follow best practices, we redefine them, one formatting misstep at a time.

Some call it contrarian. We call it visionary. Is it scalable? No. Is it logical? Also no. But it is ours. And if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s our commitment to making simple things needlessly complicated while maintaining absolute confidence throughout.

Why follow a lowercase convention that integrates cleanly into automation workflows, EPUB exports, scripting logic, and human comprehension, when we could confuse everyone equally with a brand-new logic, lovingly handcrafted in-house with no documentation in sight?

"Design is the silent ambassador of your brand."

~Paul Rand

Which explains why, in this case, the ambassador showed up late, forgot his notes, and spelled his name in all caps for no reason.

The Decision-Making Process

It began, as most breakthroughs do, with a gut feeling.

"Lowercase p looks… weird," said someone whose grasp of styles was stuck somewhere in a 1995 copy of Microsoft Publisher. "It might confuse end users because headers have an uppercase H."

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Author’s Note:

For the record, paragraph styles use a lowercase p not because someone forgot to press Shift, but because that's the global standard, across InDesign, scripting, publishing workflows, and anything remotely resembling modern typographic practice. Headers, on the other hand, use an uppercase H to distinguish them as structural levels, a pattern inherited from HTML, XML, and accessibility tagging standards. The distinction is intentional, semantic, and widely understood in design systems. Kind of like knowing the brake pedal is on the left. You could swap them, but you probably shouldn’t.

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And just like that, centuries of typographic wisdom were cast aside with the grace of a toddler sweeping a chessboard clean.

Counterpoints were raised, about accessibility tagging, industry-wide naming schemas, the fact that InDesign itself uses lowercase conventions in its own documentation for paragraph.

These were met with squinting, vague nods, and the soothing balm of:

"Well, I just think…"

And so they pivoted.

Not because it made sense.

Not because it improved functionality.

But simply because someone might feel confused.

And that was reason enough.

Firm X’s Design Philosophy

At the heart of Firm X’s strategy lies a core belief: Tools should adapt to feelings, not function. Their approach to design systems can best be described as radically intuitive chaos. They believe in making decisions not based on how tools work, but on how people feel they should work, especially if they’ve never used them.

This is part of Firm X’s broader philosophy:

• Consistency is the hobgoblin of scalable systems.
• Let no best practice go unquestioned—or followed.
• If it works well, make it friendlier. Then break it.
• A strong system is one that makes everyone feel equally unsure.
• Standardization is elitist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Isn’t the lowercase “p” an industry standard for paragraph styles?
Yes, but we’ve never let expertise get in the way of a perfectly good rebrand. Besides, lowercase letters are inherently suspicious.

Q: Doesn’t using inconsistent naming conventions create friction in shared documents?
Absolutely. It’s part of our unique collaborative culture. Think of it as a scavenger hunt for your productivity. Who needs compatibility when you have conviction?

Q: Is there any actual benefit to using the uppercase P?

No, but it comforts a few people, which we’ve deemed more important than accuracy.

Q: Will this scale across templates, teams, and automated workflows?
Of course not. But we don’t measure success in actually accomplishing the goal. We measure it in how often someone says “Well, this feels better.”

The Legacy

Firm X may never be known for its efficiency, elegance, or logic. But it will be remembered for its commitment to misapplied innovation. While others optimize for clarity and cohesion, Firm X makes decisions that are somehow both broken and brand-compliant.

They’re not like other firms. They’re actively worse, but in ways that look good in a PowerPoint deck.

They are not here to follow standards.

They are here to uppercase them.

Design is dead.

Long live design.

Just wait until you see their typeface and colour palette.