For typical cocycles over subshifts of finite type, we show that for any given orbit segment, we can construct a periodic orbit such that it shadows the given orbit segment and that the product of the cocycle along its orbit is a proximal linear map. Using this result, we show that suitable assumptions on the periodic orbits have consequences over the entire subshift.

A classical theorem of Hutchinson asserts that if an iterated function system acts on $\mathbb {R}^{d}$ by similitudes and satisfies the open set condition then it admits a unique self-similar measure with Hausdorff dimension equal to the dimension of the attractor. In the class of measures on the attractor, which arise as the projections of shift-invariant measures on the coding space, this self-similar measure is the unique measure of maximal dimension. In the context of affine iterated function systems it is known that there may be multiple shift-invariant measures of maximal dimension if the linear parts of the affinities share a common invariant subspace, or more generally if they preserve a finite union of proper subspaces of $\mathbb {R}^{d}$ . In this paper we give an example where multiple invariant measures of maximal dimension exist even though the linear parts of the affinities do not preserve a finite union of proper subspaces.