Hope you enjoyed the video and learned something new about kerning! If you have any questions be sure to leave them below and I'll do my best to answer them :)
🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 Thanks Will. When you have angleed letters like A Y V etc and/or fancy fonts. What parts of the letters should one be looking to kern off?
Carrots are delicious when cooked in an instapot oh wait, this isn’t a cooking channel :) Still kerning is something my brain perceives but doesn’t really know about. Nice to learn that when I’m thinking “why do these letters seem a bit off” there is something real behind it. Happy algorithm accident, me finding this vid.
I’ve been focusing specifically on my type during my final semesters in school because I recognized it as a weak point. When you kerned Giga correctly it sent shivers down my spine.
Thank you for the video. Your knowledge of kerning is based on your intuition and a rool of thumb. There are at least two very useful practices I use all the time to kern words. The first one is the rule of the middle letter. All you have to do is to split your word into groups of three consecutive letters and then adjust the middle letter in each group.
Carrots!! A neat trick taught to me by an art director I worked with is to turn the word upside down. There’s an interesting science to reading words in that we read the space around the letters and not the letters themselves. So turning the word upside down forces you to examine the space and not the letters. And this shouldn’t just be for logos but also larger headlines too, especially where they dominate an ad space. The growing world of reactive creative work for digital/social is killing this level of craft. Thanks for addressing it. Nice vid.
Generally, you kern adjacent curved forms closer to one another (example c and o together) and letterforms with vertical strokes like l, i, j, I, t, etc. further apart. Use the squint test and you can see where the problems lie a bit better.
I am not typing "carrots." Dammit! You tricked me! I'm not a typographer, so I'm really happy that my typical method of "push letters around until they look better" is the correct one. 😂
Great video, thanks for making this. One method I was taught back in the day to visually check if your kerning is off: is to look at the word upside down. It forces you to look at the negative space more abstractly. Also, I find certain capital letters at the endings of words (depending on the type style) could sometimes overhang slightly over the next lowercase letter: like T, Y, P and sometimes W.
Love it. Once I leant this in design school, I get triggered every time I see badly kerned text. It makes such a huge difference. Once you see it - you can't unsee it.
Carrots! What an enjoyable experience. Great beside manner for those just learning WHAT'S UP. Totally made sense, and as a newbie making her own font for her own book, looking to create a cohesive experience, this was like plugging into the matrix. Thanks a lot. Also, I loved having an etymological epiphany about the nuanced meanings of the words KERN- KERNEL.
I don't know if commenting twice helps with the algorithm but I like how you're asking to comment exactly for that purpose and not faking to want to hear what we think
Alt-arrow - I’m stealing that! Another tip I picked up is to turn the word upside down. Also (if deadline allows) going back to it after a few hours break (or next day is even better). Sometimes seeing it with fresh eyes (so to speak) you spot things you didn’t notice before.🥕🥕🥕
Glad to see this, so many new graphic designers don't consider type at all. It's too easy to just type and leave it. Maybe some good old, hand drawn text should be brought back for training new designers, it didn't do me any harm about 24 years ago. 😱
Ohh Carrots. Watxhing this and knowing a bit about kerning but not actually realising I've been doing just that for a few years now, sort of organically. Thanks for making me actually think about it!
Carrots. I always adjusted kerning like this instinctively. Also I've worked with an art director that kerned just like this. When your video title appeared to me I clicked thinking there was a proper method to calculate the spacing, but it turns out I was doing it the right way all along. Great video nonetheless, it's a considerable amount of work we do to make type just perfect that is mostly unappreciated.
Carrots. This is something I don't see enough designers talking about and I always see it done wrong. Also, I'm totally into that kerning game like a gigantic nerd. :D
Carrots! This makes a whole lot of sense and very easy to digest. Im a self taught designer so everything I know is through trial and errors and tons and tons of experience. Thanks a lot for this!
Isn't there a difference kerning uppercase and lowercase? When there are pieces of the letter like "P/ L / K" do you include the space inside the uppercase letter or start at the vertical?
Carrots. I'm curious how well you think Adobe's "optical" setting in the kerning section of the character panel works. Probably not a substitute for an expert's eye, but perhaps better than the default "auto" setting?
Sorry, that was an incomplete reply. I always use the “optical settings” as a starting point when I am using Adobe InDesign. Then I go back and look closely, then individually kern spaces between certain letters.
With today's good fonts (not the free ones, but most purchased ones) are often optimally kerned. Mostly through services like iKern, these fonts are "metrically" optimized. That's why you should by no means set them to "optical". Because this destroys the optimized kerning. Just leave them "metric". Only really bad fonts like frome Linotype should be set to optical, even according to Linotype. Which is actually already a poverty testimony of these fonts.
Carrots. I learned something today. I frequently hear or see designers talking about (criticising) kerning in other's work but never knew there were actual fundamentals to look for - I just thought it was down to opinion and personal preference.
thanks a lot for that great tutorial ! currently studying media design and one course is typography.. kerning is one part that I couldn't yet comprehend fully 😊🥕
I'm a front end dev who's been a dipping toe into the design world. Your videos have really given me a sense of how to approach a project, the common mistakes to avoid, and subtleties like this that can really make the difference in the way a project turns out. Cheers, man. 🥕 🥕
If you wanna check your kerning you can also turn your text block upside down, it becomes less about text and more about geometry and spaces between shapes
Carrots. I am a type designer and it's very difficult at first to adjust the kerning issues. But as you go through the process, the end result is so satisfying.
This was very helpful for understanding the goals and process of kerning type. I was surprised to see how intuitive/"gut feel"/subjective the process is, although I suppose that makes sense because you are measuring visual balance as perceived by a reader. I'm curious if you could train an AI to do this, even if it just gave you a "score" like the game or a second opinion. Thanks so much for sharing. I stumbled across your channel recently. I'm a software engineer by trade, but I also have a strong interest in visual design. It's been a great way to level up my game when building user interfaces. It's really cool to see your expertise at work.
Oh man! As art director this is a great great video to share with the rest of my team who are not designers but use texts on videos every week. Thank man! please continue doing great content!
I noticed you were kerning in Illustrator as opposed to InDesign. Is there a reason for that? I thought that InDesign was more of an editorial layout (with text and pictures etc) program. Were you just kerning in Illustrator for logo typography specifically?
Typeface designer here, Some of your forms look quite top heavy. Like the a, o, and d, and c, take a bit off the top of the curves to make them more subtly bottom-heavy, it is an optical adjustment but works wonders
Carrots. I really enjoyed this lesson about kerning. You broke it down to simple steps. I hope you'll be able to dive deeper into some of these lessons some day. I wouldn't mind watching these lessons broken into parts either. Keep up the good work!
The Kern game gets a massive thumbs up from me,,always great to practice properly,,gotta keep your eye in the game... only point you should have made was what your kerning space increment was when shuffling letters around... ;p
Carrots... I just want to ask that when we type something in illustrator then the kerning is not always correct,,, every time we have to correct it by ourselves.
Very nice one. The Giga kerning was a no-brainer. But what about this: I'd say the shape of the lines in the G of your Giga-Font looks unasthetic. There is something wrong in the way the lines are wider and narrower at certain places. Do you agree? Or would you say that there is no general asthetic and everybody feels different about those things?
Hi Will, thanks for another great video. I'm starting out on my Graphic Design study (at age 55! Too old?) and I find your videos very informative and easy to follow. Thanks again.
I have been doing design for our family business, I’ve made logos to business cards to shipping inserts to 4x8 signs and all between.. over the past 2 years. Never had trading but picked it up quickly and enjoy it. Let’s say I was designing a little 5.5 x 8.5 and had a few small paragraphs would you go through and kern everything? Or is it more of just logo titles that this applies to? I’ve had to learn pretty fast all these design tools, illustrator photoshop final cut. A bit overwhelming
Carrots :3 I can't wait to give that site a go. I've really wanted to improve on my kerning, because I've known its a thing but never really understood it. I started a job a few years ago, and didn't initially go in worrying about typesetting/topography, but over time, between complications with our specialized program (that i hope one day we will move away from honestly) and having to hand-draw in custom lettering (typically from old family headstones), I've really wanted to understand kerning. The person I work with has an eye for it because she's been doing it since before I was born, and even back when they had to use die cut letters by hand. She's great at pinpointing out stuff, but because she was never like specially trained/college trained, she doesn't know like terms and stuff and I'm just an inquisitive person that wants to dive into the "why" of things. I can be very technical and mathematical with spacing on letters but a current project had me rethinking because an A was between a T and i want to say W (but late night brain plus crap memory) when I took a second to step back, printed out what I had done and realized how off the spacing looked and realized my mistake. So, sent me down a rabbit hole. Off to learn more.
Kerning joke with 5 "ands" in a row. A signwriter was teaching his apprentice to make sure the kerning on the new sign they were making for "Smith & Jones" butchery. When the apprentice finished sign, all the tracking was wrong: SMIT H & JONES! His boss said, "Hey all your gaps are wrong!". "Apart from the word SMITH, the spaces between SMITH and & and & and JONES are not even!". Cheers from this toy deisgner in Australia.
Carrots! Super useful, I absolutely wanted to lean more about kerning. Well-kerned logos and type looks totally different, it's the next level! Thanks Will :D
Hope you enjoyed the video and learned something new about kerning! If you have any questions be sure to leave them below and I'll do my best to answer them :)
If there is a website that tells you what the ideal kerning should be, how come there is no automated process for this in Adobe CC?
@@copypaste3526 A good start would be to change the kerning setting from Metric to Optical in the type panel. I have it set to optical on startup.
🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕
Thanks Will. When you have angleed letters like A Y V etc and/or fancy fonts. What parts of the letters should one be looking to kern off?
I clicked so fast when I saw the kerning master talking about kerning. LOVE IT.
same tho loll
SAME 😂😂😂😂
Carrots are delicious when cooked in an instapot oh wait, this isn’t a cooking channel :) Still kerning is something my brain perceives but doesn’t really know about. Nice to learn that when I’m thinking “why do these letters seem a bit off” there is something real behind it. Happy algorithm accident, me finding this vid.
Glad it's helped :D
Hahaha kudos to you for watching this without being related to the field. 🤭🤭💖✨
Had a hard time understanding why you'd fill a joke with water.
Haha, wasn't just me then!
😂
I couldn’t un-hear it 😂
HAHAHA i got it too
He said Jug of water
I’ve been focusing specifically on my type during my final semesters in school because I recognized it as a weak point. When you kerned Giga correctly it sent shivers down my spine.
Thank you for the video. Your knowledge of kerning is based on your intuition and a rool of thumb. There are at least two very useful practices I use all the time to kern words. The first one is the rule of the middle letter. All you have to do is to split your word into groups of three consecutive letters and then adjust the middle letter in each group.
and the second one is a secret that will remain hidden for the centuries to come
@@thesteaksaignant we were never chosen to know, won't you get it
Carrots! Thank you for putting this out; I dabble in design and am 100% self-taught, you're content is the easiest to digest. Please, keep it coming!
Carrots!! A neat trick taught to me by an art director I worked with is to turn the word upside down. There’s an interesting science to reading words in that we read the space around the letters and not the letters themselves. So turning the word upside down forces you to examine the space and not the letters. And this shouldn’t just be for logos but also larger headlines too, especially where they dominate an ad space. The growing world of reactive creative work for digital/social is killing this level of craft. Thanks for addressing it. Nice vid.
Generally, you kern adjacent curved forms closer to one another (example c and o together) and letterforms with vertical strokes like l, i, j, I, t, etc. further apart. Use the squint test and you can see where the problems lie a bit better.
I am not typing "carrots." Dammit! You tricked me!
I'm not a typographer, so I'm really happy that my typical method of "push letters around until they look better" is the correct one. 😂
Never thought bad eyesight was actually helping my design until you asked me to look at Giga. Thanks Will🙏🏾
Carrots. I totally love this refresher. One of the most overlooked skill in design :)
Great video, thanks for making this.
One method I was taught back in the day to visually check if your kerning is off: is to look at the word upside down. It forces you to look at the negative space more abstractly.
Also, I find certain capital letters at the endings of words (depending on the type style) could sometimes overhang slightly over the next lowercase letter: like T, Y, P and sometimes W.
Great tips!
Love it. Once I leant this in design school, I get triggered every time I see badly kerned text. It makes such a huge difference. Once you see it - you can't unsee it.
Same here.
Carrots! What an enjoyable experience. Great beside manner for those just learning WHAT'S UP. Totally made sense, and as a newbie making her own font for her own book, looking to create a cohesive experience, this was like plugging into the matrix. Thanks a lot. Also, I loved having an etymological epiphany about the nuanced meanings of the words KERN- KERNEL.
Glad you enjoyed it
I think you should do a part 2 of this video. Really informative. Thanks for this Will
I don't know if commenting twice helps with the algorithm but I like how you're asking to comment exactly for that purpose and not faking to want to hear what we think
Alt-arrow - I’m stealing that! Another tip I picked up is to turn the word upside down. Also (if deadline allows) going back to it after a few hours break (or next day is even better). Sometimes seeing it with fresh eyes (so to speak) you spot things you didn’t notice before.🥕🥕🥕
Carrots. Love these tips. Great explanations of do's, don'ts and why! Learning lots.
Glad to see this, so many new graphic designers don't consider type at all. It's too easy to just type and leave it. Maybe some good old, hand drawn text should be brought back for training new designers, it didn't do me any harm about 24 years ago. 😱
that keyboard on your desk............is so cuteeeee 😍
Very appealing thumbnail. Props to you!
Ohh Carrots. Watxhing this and knowing a bit about kerning but not actually realising I've been doing just that for a few years now, sort of organically. Thanks for making me actually think about it!
4 years already crossed to know this simple technique.
Carrots. I always adjusted kerning like this instinctively. Also I've worked with an art director that kerned just like this.
When your video title appeared to me I clicked thinking there was a proper method to calculate the spacing, but it turns out I was doing it the right way all along.
Great video nonetheless, it's a considerable amount of work we do to make type just perfect that is mostly unappreciated.
Carrots. This is something I don't see enough designers talking about and I always see it done wrong. Also, I'm totally into that kerning game like a gigantic nerd. :D
I love the game too!! 🤣
Carrots, I found this video very helpful sometimes as a new designer I forget how important this lesson is.
Glad it was helpful! :)
Carrots! This makes a whole lot of sense and very easy to digest. Im a self taught designer so everything I know is through trial and errors and tons and tons of experience. Thanks a lot for this!
Carrot! That was most essential basic adjustment in type design and I'm bad at it. Thankyou so much for this. That was really helpful.
You are my hero! Thanks a HUGE CARROT for a “alt+arrow” shortcut!!!
Love this, been trying to find typography tutorials that go super detailed.
Thx for the blur tip! I’m not bad at kerning, but that alone should help raise my game.
🥕🥕🥕🥕 I never was too certain about kerning till now… best tutorial ever!
Carrots. Nice one, that's helpful stuff. Didn't know the ALT + arrows trick, that's nifty.
Isn't there a difference kerning uppercase and lowercase? When there are pieces of the letter like "P/ L / K" do you include the space inside the uppercase letter or start at the vertical?
Carrots. I'm curious how well you think Adobe's "optical" setting in the kerning section of the character panel works. Probably not a substitute for an expert's eye, but perhaps better than the default "auto" setting?
I always use the "optical" setting.
Sorry, that was an incomplete reply. I always use the “optical settings” as a starting point when I am using Adobe InDesign. Then I go back and look closely, then individually kern spaces between certain letters.
With today's good fonts (not the free ones, but most purchased ones) are often optimally kerned. Mostly through services like iKern, these fonts are "metrically" optimized. That's why you should by no means set them to "optical". Because this destroys the optimized kerning. Just leave them "metric". Only really bad fonts like frome Linotype should be set to optical, even according to Linotype. Which is actually already a poverty testimony of these fonts.
@@jensche21 How's the kerning on Google Fonts, any idea?
@@prashadlodhia it depends on each foundry/font…
Thank you so much for this video! Having some hands-on resources is going to help as I make my way through my typography class! 🥕🥕🥕
6:16 e goes one step right, then two steps left, then one step right - perfection!
Carrots. Kerning do be a tricky aspect of Typography. Thank you for explaining it more well
Carrots. I learned something today. I frequently hear or see designers talking about (criticising) kerning in other's work but never knew there were actual fundamentals to look for - I just thought it was down to opinion and personal preference.
thanks a lot for that great tutorial ! currently studying media design and one course is typography.. kerning is one part that I couldn't yet comprehend fully 😊🥕
I'm a front end dev who's been a dipping toe into the design world. Your videos have really given me a sense of how to approach a project, the common mistakes to avoid, and subtleties like this that can really make the difference in the way a project turns out.
Cheers, man. 🥕 🥕
If you wanna check your kerning you can also turn your text block upside down, it becomes less about text and more about geometry and spaces between shapes
Carrots! Very helpful. Thanks Will 👌
Carrots! Love it, thanks will!!! 🙏🏻
Walling looks like Notion, which it's what i use. Good carrots colleague!!
This topic is really really need to talk about! Thanks mate
Carrots. I am a type designer and it's very difficult at first to adjust the kerning issues. But as you go through the process, the end result is so satisfying.
Informative... This subject is underrated...
optical spacing the negative space/ shapes between letters to help show each letter form?
This was very helpful for understanding the goals and process of kerning type. I was surprised to see how intuitive/"gut feel"/subjective the process is, although I suppose that makes sense because you are measuring visual balance as perceived by a reader. I'm curious if you could train an AI to do this, even if it just gave you a "score" like the game or a second opinion.
Thanks so much for sharing. I stumbled across your channel recently. I'm a software engineer by trade, but I also have a strong interest in visual design. It's been a great way to level up my game when building user interfaces. It's really cool to see your expertise at work.
I learned quite a bit about proper kerning having been a graphic designer and sign painter. Awesome stuff!
Oh man! As art director this is a great great video to share with the rest of my team who are not designers but use texts on videos every week.
Thank man! please continue doing great content!
Trust me, everyone watches your videos to the end. We may skip the square space bit lol but we watch it all. Carrots!
LOOK at That mechanical keyboard !🔥🔥💜⌨️
Yes! Someone else who nerds out about fonts and design.
Carrots
Great to learn something new - not a designer, but always good to add knowledge as you never know when you need it - cheers
Carrots! Thanks for a quality video. There are only a couple of good ones on this topic on UA-cam.
Again, Well done! I am teaching a typography course and I will direct my students to they channel.
I noticed you were kerning in Illustrator as opposed to InDesign. Is there a reason for that? I thought that InDesign was more of an editorial layout (with text and pictures etc) program. Were you just kerning in Illustrator for logo typography specifically?
You learn something new everyday. Great video! Carrots
Best carrots explanation video!
Thank you for the wonderful advice!!! 🥕 🥕 🥕
Carrots! Thanks. Nice to be reassured I've been doing it correctly : )
I honestly didn't know. Thanks Paterson
Carrots does helps me alot, and now I'm editing my fonts kerning
Typeface designer here, Some of your forms look quite top heavy. Like the a, o, and d, and c, take a bit off the top of the curves to make them more subtly bottom-heavy, it is an optical adjustment but works wonders
Carrots! I always wanted to hear you about kerning. So when I saw this video I clicked on the spot. 🙂
Carrots. I really enjoyed this lesson about kerning. You broke it down to simple steps. I hope you'll be able to dive deeper into some of these lessons some day. I wouldn't mind watching these lessons broken into parts either. Keep up the good work!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Carrots! LOL
Nicely made video about kerning.
How accurate is selecting optical kerning in illustrator? I find that to be pretty accurate
Carrots. Will, enjoyed this video. Kearning seems easy (for a non designer) but can be tricky to really pick up.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Summing up: Kerning, walling and carrots
The Kern game gets a massive thumbs up from me,,always great to practice properly,,gotta keep your eye in the game... only point you should have made was what your kerning space increment was when shuffling letters around... ;p
Thank you very much for making it so practical and simple.
How much time do you invest into kerning? Do you kern in the whole text or only in headlines?
Carrots... I just want to ask that when we type something in illustrator then the kerning is not always correct,,, every time we have to correct it by ourselves.
Very nice one. The Giga kerning was a no-brainer. But what about this: I'd say the shape of the lines in the G of your Giga-Font looks unasthetic. There is something wrong in the way the lines are wider and narrower at certain places. Do you agree? Or would you say that there is no general asthetic and everybody feels different about those things?
Hi Will, thanks for another great video. I'm starting out on my Graphic Design study (at age 55! Too old?) and I find your videos very informative and easy to follow. Thanks again.
Thanks for watching! It's never too late to learn. I hope you find a good home here in the channel :)
Carrots! Great video and very informative! Will certainly be checking out that Kerning game to test myself regularly. Many thanks!
Can I just do this in inkscape Type > break apart > align (evenly space horizontally)?
Carrots. Very informative video. Will try the game definitely. Thanks
carrots! the kerning game is a lifesaver thanks!
I have been doing design for our family business, I’ve made logos to business cards to shipping inserts to 4x8 signs and all between.. over the past 2 years. Never had trading but picked it up quickly and enjoy it. Let’s say I was designing a little 5.5 x 8.5 and had a few small paragraphs would you go through and kern everything? Or is it more of just logo titles that this applies to? I’ve had to learn pretty fast all these design tools, illustrator photoshop final cut. A bit overwhelming
Definitely carrots. Thank you sooo much for the value provided :).
Carrots🥕. Great lesson on kerning. Thank you.
Carrots :3 I can't wait to give that site a go. I've really wanted to improve on my kerning, because I've known its a thing but never really understood it. I started a job a few years ago, and didn't initially go in worrying about typesetting/topography, but over time, between complications with our specialized program (that i hope one day we will move away from honestly) and having to hand-draw in custom lettering (typically from old family headstones), I've really wanted to understand kerning. The person I work with has an eye for it because she's been doing it since before I was born, and even back when they had to use die cut letters by hand. She's great at pinpointing out stuff, but because she was never like specially trained/college trained, she doesn't know like terms and stuff and I'm just an inquisitive person that wants to dive into the "why" of things. I can be very technical and mathematical with spacing on letters but a current project had me rethinking because an A was between a T and i want to say W (but late night brain plus crap memory) when I took a second to step back, printed out what I had done and realized how off the spacing looked and realized my mistake. So, sent me down a rabbit hole. Off to learn more.
I love your vids they’re so helpful
I get asked to use other languages in design. Any thoughts or resources on kerning, say, Arabic? Korean? Hindi?
I've been learning so much recently from your videos and logo reviews. Thank you 😊.
The kerning game is super helpful, Carrots
Kerning joke with 5 "ands" in a row. A signwriter was teaching his apprentice to make sure the kerning on the new sign they were making for "Smith & Jones" butchery. When the apprentice finished sign, all the tracking was wrong: SMIT H & JONES! His boss said, "Hey all your gaps are wrong!". "Apart from the word SMITH, the spaces between SMITH and & and & and JONES are not even!". Cheers from this toy deisgner in Australia.
Haha, that's great!
CARROTS! Great video!
Tomatoes. Might have skipped the end, but gotta go & try this kerning game right now! 🤫😜 Laz
Carrots. Very informative, thanks Will!
Carrots! Absolutely love your videos. It's all the stuff I wish they taught in design school.
Hi! Where can I find that amazing keyboard at??
Carrots! Super useful, I absolutely wanted to lean more about kerning. Well-kerned logos and type looks totally different, it's the next level! Thanks Will :D
Hi I wanted to know if kerning is required for script fonts too? What can be done in that case?
Carrots! 🥕✨ Awesome content, thank you!