Had an interesting type workshop today about kerning and text hierarchy. Although I knew what kerning was, I had never put this idea into practice when creating logos (although this will probably change as of today). Kerning is basically the idea of making sure the space between individual letters in a single word are evenly spaced to create an aesthetic which is 'easy on the eye'.
Kerning
The process is mathematical - using areas of negative space to determine an evenly space word but a lot of judgement is down to your own initiative as it tends to be done by the eye. When kerning a word, always start with the larger area and increase the spacing of all other letters accordingly. The following, 'Play', was a word given to everyone which, in any font, we had to kern evenly. I added 20 thousandths of an em space between the P and the L aswell as the A and the Y as I noticed the larger negative space was between the L and the A.
We then had to put kerning into practice using our first and second name - one in a serif and one in a sans-serif. Serif type is harder to work with as the spaces are more clear with sans-serif type. I determined the largest negative space to be between the A and the R. I read 'Warburton' as 'War-bur-ton' therefore I altered the spacing between B and U, U and R, R and T and O and N.
Text Hierarchy
The placement of text on a page can alter the way it is read therefore we as designers need to control the order of information. A poster in a high street, for example, will only be glanced at for a second two and in this short space of time, passersby need to digest as much information as possible. It is highly important the information they see is the most important. We need to manipulate people into reading something as we want it to be read.
We were given the task of placing the words 'one', 'two' and 'three' on a page from top to bottom and force people to read it this way (as people tent to read from top to bottom). I immediately decided to create the text of one to three respectively. However, despite 'two' being a smaller size to 'one', it has the most negative space surrounding and due to its central placement, our eyes are immediately drawn to it.
This task was for people to read 'one, two, three' from middle, to bottom to top. I placed 'one' in the centre, decreased the size of 'three' and placed 'two' in a mid point size at the bottom.
The following had the addition of 'four' and we had to make people read from the middle, to the top and then to the bottom. One was centred; Two was placed in the top right; Three in the top left and Four in the bottom right.
The following was simply an experimentation:
There is a difference between what you read and what your eyes see therefore we need to make sure a piece of information is read in the correct way. This can be achieved through size, layout, weight and case of the letters/words.
Breaking a sentence
How do you break a sentence
into two lines?
How do you
break a sentence into two lines?
How do you break a
sentence into two lines?
Although the third is more evenly spaced, the break should be at a natural 'pause' during speech.
Task for next workshop
Fit a proverb, centered in a box, where is is 'broken' in the right places and therefore read in the correct way. Also try and find unusual/interesting line breaks/kerning.
