10 Nifty Kerning Tips To Boost Typography

10 Nifty KERNING Tips To Boost Typography TRACKING With an organized layout, it is easier to see how much kerning you actually need. Therefore, it is practical to fix vertical lines (leading) and the equal spaces between letters (tracking) prior to kerning. Improve CLARITY LEADING DO LEADING AND TRACKING FIRST Aparajita - Aparajita You can't work out kerning using default letters and substituting them with the actual fonts later, NORMAL KERNED that's insane. Instead, make sure you kern using the actual fonts you'll be designing with. KERN USING THE ACTUAL FONTS OPTICAL EQUAL Remember people are not going to measure the space and see if they are equal. People are going to visualize it and see if it is readable and eye-pleasing, and that's all that's going to matter. SPACE SPACE KERNING IS ALL ABOUT VISUAL SPACE The human eye is a better judge than a computer's mind. So it is more important to consider what humans will see. Skip automatic kerning settings and adjust the spaces between letters one by Individual one. MANUALLY KERN EACH LETTER TOO TOO tight - loose The more you kern, the tighter OR the letters will be. And disproportionately tight letters can be nasty and hard to read. DON'T OVERDO THE KERNING thr hre ree It is often easy to miss details that are not in place when you visualize a group of words together. To avoid that, create groups of three letters each and kern one trio at a time. KERN IN GROUP OF THREE Each letter takes up different amount of space. For e.g. there is lot of negative space around Avoid slanted letters such as 'A' and 'V'. But you can lessen that space if placed side by side with the right letters such as `Oʻ. SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS B/W LETTERS Size Size size Each time have a smaller version and a larger version of the original design in hand so that you have a general idea of what it would look like in different sizes and make sure it is readable in all variations. DESIGN IN DIFFERENT SIZES If you flip the typeface upside down or mirror them sideways, you get to pay attention to the characters and the white space around them instead of the Mirror meaning that they have when assembled. TOTTIM REVIEW FROM DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES You and Me The spaces between the words matter too. Ensure that as you kern your letters, you also consider the spaces between words. It all has to be consistent. BEWARE OF THE SPACE BETWEEN WORDS dn Designmantic