Kerning Matters

Dec 10, 2019 | Design Matters

Letters need space to breathe too, you know?

“Kerning” is the technical term to refer to the space that exists between the letters of a typeface (the type of letter). Designers can edit this spacing to create different styles and sensations. And, of course, everything that can be used to improve, can also be used to damage. The image above illustrates just that. 🙂

After all, when you’re reading something in a hurry (as it so often happens when it comes to advertising and design), it’s all too easy to mistake one word for the other. Much like the way we work on text hierarchy and font size, kerning makes a huge difference.

First impact

There are many big brands out there that use existing typography for their actual logos. Facebook is one of them. But they didn’t just use the font as it was and called it for the day.

Instead, they altered its kerning to turn it into something unique.

The simple action of approaching or separating letters can make for a recognisable logo or headline. It makes a big first impact right away.

Text legibility

When we are reading we don’t like to struggle. And neither does the rest of the world! So when writing our own texts we have to remember to make them clear and accessible. If words are too close to each other they’ll be a jumbled mess, and if they are too apart they’ll be slower to read.

Saving time

Sometimes two letters don’t look quite right together, and noticing them, however short it is, makes us pause. That’s not ideal. When we are reading a text we want to stay focused and uninterrupted. We shouldn’t be paying attention to the letter shapes, but to the content they’re trying to transmit, and sometimes the wrong spacing between them can be distracting.

Having a good kerning is an effective tool to make your reader stay focused on your texts and to convey your message smoothly by making it faster and easier to read.

Don’t forget: If it’s not easy to read, it won’t be read at all.

Say hello and find out what can we do for your business. Write us an email to: info@67.pt.

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