10 kerning tips for improving your typography

By Rebecca Creger on January 20, 2014 in Design Tips and Resources

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In typography, kerning is defined as the adjustment of space between two individual letters. Its also not an uncommon thing to neglect when youre reaching the end of a grueling deadline. Your clients may not know what kerning is, but theyll know somethings amiss when their design has poorly kerned type. Doing it right helps a design look more professional, so spending just a couple more minutes kerning your type should be second nature for any professional designer. Here are ! tips thatll help"

1. Take care of leading and tracking before kerning

Tracking is the overall spacing between groups of letters. eading is the vertical spacing between lines of type. Its important to make the desired adjustments to your leading and tracking first, because doing that after kerning can undo the balance in the kerning adjustments youve already made.

2. Dont let your font software kern for you

#hen it comes to headlines and logotypes, you need to kern the letters yourself rather than relying on the default spacing provided for you in the font software. $ach typeface will have different spatial relationships for its letters, so youll have to adjust the kerning differently for each one. %raphics programs come with auto&kerning tools like the default !etric kerning and "ptica# kerning, which adjust the spacing between letters based on their shapes. However, kerning manually will give you more control. 'o kern your type, youll be using the (haracters panel, which will look pretty much the same whether youre working in )hotoshop, InDesign or Illustrator. *tart by opening the +(haracters, panel. -e.t, double&click the cursor between two letters of the type you want to kern. 'his activates the type tool. -e.t, go to the (haracter panel and change the number values in the kerning tool, e.perimenting by increasing and decreasing the value, which will change the spacing between pairs of letters. $eyboard %hortcut& click between the two letters, hold down the option or alt key and use the right and left arrow keys to adjust the kerning.

3. Create equal perceived space between letters

/erning isnt a mathematically e0ual amount of space, its a perceived e0ual amount of space between letters according to the human eye. 1nce common kerning techni0ue is to visuali2e and sand filling the spaces between the letters, and trying to make the volumes of sand e0ual. #hen youre kerning, make sure not to 2oom in too much on your type, or the spacing will appear deceptively larger than the true final result.

4. Understand spatial relations ips between different letters

3ll letters are a combination of straight, round and diagonal edges, so understanding their basic relationships is a helpful starting off point. 1ne way to gauge the proper kerning for letters is to see the distance between 4 straight letters as straight and round letters as slightly less than unit, the distance between unit.

unit, and the distance between two round letters as even more slightly less than

Diagonal&sided letters like 3, v and y, are the most challenging letters to kern because of the larger negative space they create. 'hese re0uire special attention, but should not be used as a guide for the spacing of the entire word.

!. "ern your type upside down

Doing this helps you see your type as a group of e0ually spaced shapes without being distracted by the meaning of the words.

#. "ern in groups of t ree

'ry doing this by starting with the first three letters of a word, and block the rest of the letters with your hand or a piece of paper. 1nce youve adjusted the spacing between the first three letters, shift your ga2e over by one letter until youve reached the end of the word.

'( Don)t forget that #ess is more

Its better to kern too little than over&kern your type. 'ype that is too tightly spaced is unattractive and difficult to read.

$. Use different kerning solutions for large and s%all &ersions of your type

'his is especially necessary for displaying smaller and larger versions of a logo. /erning differences are not as apparent in smaller type si2es, but in headlines and logotypes they become a lot more obvious. *ometimes its also necessary to have looser kerning for smaller versions of a logo.

'. (atc out for c allenging letter co%binations

5etters like the uppercase #, Y, 6, ', 5, and ), the lower case y and k are some of trickier letters to kern. *o are upper and lower case letters that sit ne.t to each other. 'o fi. these spacing problems, try kerning those difficult letters first and then kern the rest of the letters.

1). *ractice a lot +and try out t is cool kerning ga%e,

3ll these techni0ues will take practice before they become second nature. 'o get started, try out this fun kerning game that tests your kerning solutions against that of a master typographer, and scores you accordingly. Remember, kerning is all about creating consistent spatial relationship between a group of letters. 'he more consistent your spacing is, the more rhythm and harmony your typography will have.

-ot any kerning tips. / are t e% wit us in t e co%%ents0

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