Titelstil

Titelstil is a term used in typography and publishing to describe the conventions for presenting titles and headings in a text. It encompasses capitalization rules, punctuation, and the typographic treatment of titles, such as italics or quotation marks, as well as layout decisions for headings.

In German-language practice, titelstil often refers to how titles are capitalized. A common approach is to capitalize the first word and all nouns, while adjectives and verbs are usually lowercased, except when they are proper nouns. Some house or publisher styles apply a more expansive title-case variant that capitalizes additional words. Proper nouns always remain capitalized. Punctuation and hyphenation in titles are also defined by the chosen style.

Beyond capitalization, titelstil covers typographic formatting: longer works such as books or films are typically set in italics (or underlined in handwritten contexts), while shorter works or article titles may be placed in quotation marks. In running text, titles are often distinguished from the surrounding material by italics or quotation marks, depending on the style guide.

The concept is used by editors, publishers, librarians, and writers to achieve consistency across a body of work. Variants of titelstil exist across language communities and style guides, and individual publishers may adopt their own house rules. Common references include national or organizational style manuals and international guidelines adapted for German-language texts.