If you’ve ever looked at a logo or typeface and thought to yourself “That looks odd, I can’t quite put my finger on it…”, the odds are good that it was the kerning that stood out to you. While most people understand the importance of choosing the right typeface, and even how to use bold and italic versions of their chosen font, few people appreciate the role that kerning can play in making a design look good. Kerning is such an important part of typography that it is built into most modern fonts, but if you don’t know what to look for, it can be hard to spot.
The primary function of kerning is to make sure that the space between letters in a word is consistent throughout. If you look closely at any block of text, you will see that there are some combinations of letters where the space between them naturally looks bigger or smaller than between other letters. This is particularly noticeable with letters like “W” or “T”, which have sharp edges that make it hard for a computer program (or even a person) to choose what exactly qualifies as the edge of the letter.
Kerning isn’t just about making sure
Kerning is a typography term that refers to adjusting the space between two characters. It’s an essential part of typography, as it can make or break your design. It’s important to get the spacing right so that the letters and words don’t look awkwardly spaced out.
In this post, I’ll explain what kerning is, why it’s important, when you should use it and how to use it effectively.
What is Kerning?
Kerning is a term used in typography, which refers to the process of adjusting the space between individual letter forms horizontally. Although it can also refer to adjusting vertical spacing between characters (known as leading), usually kerning refers to horizontal spacing only. The adjustment of kerning allows for a more visually appealing design and helps reduce the amount of space taken up by the text. The importance of kerning lies in creating a clear and readable message with a clean layout.
If you are a designer, typographer or lettering artist, this will not be news to you. But if you’re a client, or just curious about the world of design and typography, this is something that you should know about.
Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. The term originated in metal type where it was necessary to physically move characters closer together (an example is the combination of “A” and “V”, which would need to be adjusted so they don’t collide). In digital fonts, kerning refers to the adjustment of adjacent characters based on special codes included in a font or manually added by designers.
Kerning improves legibility by making sure there are no big gaps between letters that distract from reading. It also makes for better balance and rhythm in individual words and lines of text, which contributes to an overall pleasing composition.
Do not confuse kerning with tracking. Tracking is used for adjusting the space between groups of letters to achieve a more uniform density in text. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letters (or pairs of letters) to make them more appealing visually.
The need for kerning can often be overlooked because we read without consciously thinking about how
In the design world, typography is a very crucial element. It’s also an art form and when executed properly, it can have a huge impact on your designs.
The term “kerning” refers to the spacing between two specific letters or characters that appear next to each other. For example, when you look at the word “typography” you usually don’t see any issues with the spacing between letters like t and y. However, if you notice closely, there are some cases where the spacing between characters is either too large or too small (such as the space between p and h).
This is where kerning comes in. The main purpose of kerning is to create even spaces between letters so that your words will be readable and easier to process by your brain.
In this article, we are going to discuss why kerning is important for typography and how you can use it effectively in your designs.
Kerning is the amount of space between any two adjacent characters. It can be a tricky thing to get right and is often overlooked. In this article, I’ll explain what kerning is, and how you can fix it yourself.
What Is Kerning?
Kerning is the adjustment of space between two letters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. It is similar to tracking and letter-spacing, but refers only to the space between two letters.
The word kerning originated from the term ‘kerning’ which means ‘to remove the serifs from a typeface’. The word was brought into use by French printers who used it as an abbreviation for ‘carner’ meaning to ‘corner’ or ‘nook’.
Kerning improves typeface readability as it allows us to create even spacing between character pairs and make them easier on the eye. Some fonts have kerned pairs built in which means that each letter has been adjusted with its neighbour(s) in mind and will sit neatly next to them when typed out. Others don’t have this built in, so we need to adjust these manually using CSS or by using
Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letterforms, while tracking (letter-spacing) adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters.
Kerning is rarely applied to monospaced fonts; it is only necessary when a font contains multiple glyphs that have varying widths, as these create gaps and overlaps that must be resolved. The term “kerning” was coined by American writer and typographer Oliver Simon in 1958 but the concept has been around for hundreds of years.
In traditional typography, kerning was laboriously performed by skilled humans, who would adjust letter-pair spacing by inserting extra space or lead between specific pairs of letters. In digital type, hardware and software limitations necessitated that more sophisticated kerning methods be developed to make kerning practical.
Kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letter forms, while tracking (letter-spacing) adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters. In a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces between each pair of characters all have a visually similar area.
Well-kerned typefaces make paragraphs and pages of text easier to read and more appealing to look at. Letters that are too close together or too far apart can be distracting or even unreadable. Poor kerning makes it difficult for the eye to distinguish one letter from another, causing eye strain and sometimes headaches for readers.
Kerning is a subtle adjustment that is easily overlooked because it takes so little space from the letters—usually only 1/1000 of an inch! But don’t be fooled; it’s an important step in creating effective typography.