Learning Summary #2

Mostly my presentation in the first learning summary had a lot of the information I had researched. But I am placing more of my research here, as well as my work in progress. There might be more later that I will go in and add. 

Leading	Kerning	Tracking
Works on vertical space between lines	Works only on specific letter pairs (Two at a time)	Works on ranges of characters, even whole documents.
	Targeted	Generalized
	It adjusts the spaces between specific letter pairs to adjust irregularity in spacing	It uniformly affects the spacing between all the characters in a range of text.
	Types of Kerning: Auto (Metric) Optical Manual	Letterspacing as a whole Adjusts the spacing to all letters

Metric Kerning	Metric or auto kerning is software defined. The designer has the least control over letters when using metric or auto kerning and the result can sometimes cause odd shapes between letter pairs, such as creating too little space in one instance and too much somewhere else within the same word or phrase. Metric kerning is also known as “auto” kerning The default kerning setting in adobe suite Built into the kerning table of a font The kerning table assigns values to common problem kerning pairs, such as LA, WA, WE Though this is helpful, always go back and manually adjust anything that looks out of place… The programs aren't as smart as you think!
Optical Kerning	Discards settings, re-spacing and re-kerning the type according to an algorithm. It uses the shapes of letters to determine what space will appear between them. Optical kerning has some level of control to it but will not space letters as precisely as doing it by hand. This can be a great option though when mix-and-matching different fonts in letter pairs. Also built into a font Uses an algorithm that calculates the space between letters It uses the shapes of letters to determine what space will appear between them Perfect for sections of text that use different typefaces or fonts, as well as different sizes Fixes the spacial issues of italicized text next to regular
Manual Kerning	Pretty straight forward Kerning done by hand Anything over 12pt font should be manually kerned Typically anything under 12 point font is safe from manual kerning, like books Manual kerning will be most important for large, highly visible text like typographic logos or headlines

 

Here I made a poster showing the difference between Manual and Optical kerning. At first there doesn't seem like there is that much of a difference, but placing them on top of each other shows the major difference.

Kerning Tips:

• Kern in three-letter blocks by highlighting or coloring three letters at a time. This way you can compare spacing one pair at a time.
• Blow it up. Double the point size of your type so you can really see the space. Is it bothersome? Kern it.
• Opt for a combination of upper- and lower-case letters. Caps pairs are some of the worst kerning offenders.

Lettering: The shapes of some letters can make them hard to kern. Some letters that don't kern as well as others within a word
• Slanted letters: A, K, V, W, Y
• Letter combos: W or V + A (any order); T or F + a lowercase vowel

Here I made two versions of this poster that shows the specific points of these letter pairs

Choose your typeface early on: This also ties into waiting to Kern last. Each typeface is different, and needs it's own attentions to detail. Constantly changing typeface changes the feel and look of the whole design.

Point size: The size you set your font at will influence your kerning.If you set a headline at 48 pt., kern it, and then later need to change it to 24 pt., your careful kerning work will likely be undone.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to kern after you’ve settled on the size of your type. Or, if you’re working on something like a logo that will appear in print at one size on a business card and at another larger size on a t-shirt, kern those separately.

Two Versions: Especially when working with clients, its good to supply two versions of kerning, one large and more spaced out, and then a smaller logo with tighter kerning

Over­-kerning: As a general rule of thumb, you can get away with tighter kerning at larger sizes, but letters can look closer together at smaller sizes, so looser kerning may be required.

Text that is tightly spaced can be hard to read, especially at small sizes. Another negative side effect of under-­kerning is that letters can be so close that they touch, which sometimes creates a whole other letter (or word!). (r+n = m)

Flip it: Another useful exercise for kerning is to turn the typeface upside-down. This allows you to focus on the form of the characters rather than getting distracted by the actual word being viewed. Upside-down text becomes more abstract and enables you to focus on lights (white space) and dark (the characters) areas.

Box it: Place boxes around each letter, touching each edge of the letter. Then see how the boxes relate to each other

Know when to kern:

Large blocks of copy don’t need (manual) kerning because:

• Any kerning problems won’t be visible at typical body copy sizes like 10, 11, or 12 points.
• Many fonts, especially high­-quality ones, come with hundreds or even thousands of “kern pairs” built in. Most of the time, these custom-­kerned pairs will take into account a unique typeface letter.
• Going through a page full of text and kerning letters pair by pair would take hours (aint nobody got time for that).
• Every font is different, so the kerning you apply to one font can’t necessarily be mixed-and-matched with another one. Fonts can also change personalities depending on what other fonts they’re paired with. You might have a perfectly kerned font for your headline text, but change the font for your subtitle, and suddenly that perfectly kerned headline no longer looks so perfect. That’s why it’s important to plan out all of the fonts your design will include.

Current work in progress: Posters

This is one of the designs that I shrunk down to show how important it is to create two versions of a design, rather than just shrinking it. 

The one on the bottom is my progress in making the logo smaller for business cards, I took out the texture because going that small made it look too messy, and I would want the viewer to be able to read it as well.