Practice a lot (and try out this cool kerning game)Īll these techniques will take practice before they become second nature. To fix these spacing problems, try kerning those difficult letters first and then kern the rest of the letters. So are upper and lower case letters that sit next to each other. Letters like the uppercase W, Y, V, T, L, and P, the lower case y and k are some of trickier letters to kern. Watch out for challenging letter combinations Sometimes it’s also necessary to have looser kerning for smaller versions of a logo. Kerning differences are not as apparent in smaller type sizes, but in headlines and logotypes they become a lot more obvious. This is especially necessary for displaying smaller and larger versions of a logo. Use different kerning solutions for large and small versions of your type Type that is too tightly spaced is unattractive and difficult to read. It’s better to kern too little than over-kern your type. Once you’ve adjusted the spacing between the first three letters, shift your gaze over by one letter until you’ve reached the end of the word. Try 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. Kern your type upside downĭoing this helps you see your type as a group of equally spaced shapes without being distracted by the meaning of the words. These require special attention, but should not be used as a guide for the spacing of the entire word. One way to gauge the proper kerning for letters is to see the distance between 2 straight letters as 1 unit, the distance between straight and round letters as slightly less than 1 unit, and the distance between two round letters as even more slightly less than 1 unit.ĭiagonal-sided letters like A, V and Y, are the most challenging letters to kern because of the larger negative space they create. Understand spatial relationships between different lettersĪll letters are a combination of straight, round and diagonal edges, so understanding their basic relationships is a helpful starting off point. When you’re kerning, make sure not to zoom in too much on your type, or the spacing will appear deceptively larger than the true final result. Once common kerning technique is to visualize and sand filling the spaces between the letters, and trying to make the volumes of sand equal. Kerning isn’t a mathematically equal amount of space, it’s a perceived equal amount of space between letters according to the human eye. Create equal perceived space between letters Keyboard Shortcut: Click between the two letters, hold down the option or alt key and use the right and left arrow keys to adjust the kerning. Next, go to the Character panel and change the number values in the kerning tool, experimenting by increasing and decreasing the value, which will change the spacing between pairs of letters. Next, double-click the cursor between two letters of the type you want to kern. To kern your type, you’ll be using the Characters panel, which will look pretty much the same whether you’re working in Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator. However, kerning manually will give you more control. Graphics programs come with auto-kerning tools like the default Metric kerning and Optical kerning, which adjust the spacing between letters based on their shapes. Each typeface will have different spatial relationships for its letters, so you’ll have to adjust the kerning differently for each one. When 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. Don’t let your font software kern for you It’s 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 you’ve already made. Leading is the vertical spacing between lines of type. Tracking is the overall spacing between groups of letters. Take care of leading and tracking before kerning 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. Your clients may not know what kerning is, but they’ll know something’s amiss when their design has poorly kerned type. It’s also not an uncommon thing to neglect when you’re reaching the end of a grueling deadline. In typography, kerning is defined as the adjustment of space between two individual letters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |