The Importance of Kerning

Kerning is adjusting the space between letters, and either increasing or decreasing the distance to ensure better readability or appearance. You may think that you change the kerning of text purely for aesthetic purposes, this is not the case, if you do not space letters out enough you can end up with a completely different word to what you originally intended.  Below are a few examples of awkward messages that can result from incorrect spacing

1. Click Lovers - Best PC shop repair

clicklovers_Kerning

2. What Style Of Massage Is This?

massage_therapist_kerning

3. A perfectly good mushroom ruined

mushroom_kerning

4. Quite the family night. 

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Importance of kerning is most noticeable on big, visible typography like headlines, titles, banners or  logos. Large blocks of copy don’t generally need kerning because kerning problems won’t be visible at typical body copy sizes like 10, 11, or 12 points.

You can try out your kerning skills with a web game called Kerntype

Avenir Creative