What is kerning?
Kerning is, basically, adjusting the spacing between letters to make them more readable and attractively spaced. Badly kerned type can lead to funny misinterpretations and major headaches. Google "bad kerning" for examples. One common example of bad kerning is when an "r" and an "n" are too close together and are mistaken for an "m". To make a joke of this common error, some typographers jokingly say "keming" instead of "kerning".
Wait, but don't computers already have set spaces between letters?
Computers do automatically kern text for you, but can sometimes cause odd shapes between letter pairs, such as creating too little space in one instance and too much space somewhere else within the same word or phrase. If this happens, it is necessary to manually adjust the letter spacing.
How can I kern letters in Illustrator?
Once your text is highlighted, click "Characters" at the top of the screen to open the Character window. Where it says "A/V", click the drop down menu and select "Optical" to have the computer auto adjust the text.
> That's better, but what about the stuff that's still not right?
Use the text tool to click between two letters you want to kern. Hold Alt and press the right or left arrows to manually shift the position of the letters. NOTE: You cannot kern letters in an image, only letters that you manually type or copy-paste.
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Kerning Assignment #1: Play the Kerning Game
Play The Kerning Ga (Take a screenshot and send it on the meSubmit your Work page when you get a final score of 85 or more to get your points for this assignment)
Due at the end of class on Friday, February 27.
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Kerning Assignment #2: Fix the text!
Download this file and correct the errors. There are multiple examples of both bad kerning and typography rivers-- fix them!
Due at the end of class on Monday, March 2.