How To Kern Professionally. (Not many know this!) 🤯

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[@willpatersondesign]

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 :)

[@copypaste3526]

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?

[@vinterstille]

@@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.

[@Jonny87Slick]

🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 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?

[@FoggyMtnDrifter]

I clicked so fast when I saw the kerning master talking about kerning. LOVE IT.

[@senselessfax]

same tho loll

[@PButterReeseGaming]

SAME 😂😂😂😂

[@zimmejoc]

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.

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad it's helped :D

[@digitalcatto]

Hahaha kudos to you for watching this without being related to the field. 🤭🤭💖✨

[@hughspector1115]

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.

[@MrZIONart]

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.

[@thesteaksaignant]

and the second one is a secret that will remain hidden for the centuries to come

[@eyadalabasy1257]

@@thesteaksaignant we were never chosen to know, won't you get it

[@EPHONIC]

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.

[@pexeixv]

Had a hard time understanding why you'd fill a joke with water.

[@angelbear_og]

Haha, wasn't just me then!

[@willpatersondesign]

😂

[@picklepirate]

I couldn’t un-hear it 😂

[@julioirawan]

HAHAHA i got it too

[@soohashhungsraz5994]

He said Jug of water

[@BryanDBraddy]

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!

[@erinbakke2944]

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.

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@jonathanbishop6996]

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.

[@michelle6250]

Never thought bad eyesight was actually helping my design until you asked me to look at Giga. Thanks Will🙏🏾

[@t00bed]

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.

[@andreahoffman8152]

Same here.

[@thedylanrogers]

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.

[@willpatersondesign]

Great tips!

[@kelvinnduka2176]

I think you should do a part 2 of this video. Really informative. Thanks for this Will

[@Tsukikao]

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

[@mpbMKE]

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. 😂

[@mzupanic]

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

[@calrsom]

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.

[@titaniumshell]

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. 😱

[@cinzabreu]

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.

[@absterama]

Carrots. I totally love this refresher. One of the most overlooked skill in design :)

[@jonbbradie]

Thx for the blur tip! I’m not bad at kerning, but that alone should help raise my game.

[@marshallhinson3776]

Carrots, I found this video very helpful sometimes as a new designer I forget how important this lesson is.

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad it was helpful! :)

[@hadi_hd3]

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.

[@MrLRWH]

Love this, been trying to find typography tutorials that go super detailed.

[@einniugs]

that keyboard on your desk............is so cuteeeee 😍

[@rossmcvinnie6903]

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.

[@manpreethtej5557]

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.

[@viviennescott2834]

Carrots. Love these tips. Great explanations of do's, don'ts and why! Learning lots.

[@HalfWarrior]

I learned quite a bit about proper kerning having been a graphic designer and sign painter. Awesome stuff!

[@dabistudio_japan]

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!

[@chocod]

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!

[@blazespirit]

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! 🥕🥕🥕

[@helencaleb2188]

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.🥕🥕🥕

[@raypower2743]

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.

[@willpatersondesign]

Thanks for watching! It's never too late to learn. I hope you find a good home here in the channel :)

[@craigcutch26]

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!

[@nur_samanta]

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 😊🥕

[@Arefin360vlog]

4 years already crossed to know this simple technique.

[@Notmybrain]

You are my hero! Thanks a HUGE CARROT for a “alt+arrow” shortcut!!!

[@treydennice]

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.

[@TheDionysiac]

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. 🥕 🥕

[@Radientzone345]

Carrots. Kerning do be a tricky aspect of Typography. Thank you for explaining it more well

[@elizabethyang7619]

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!

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@I_am_Spartacus]

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

[@Muhammed.Yaseen]

Very appealing thumbnail. Props to you!

[@timdesignsincolorado]

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?

[@SykesAJ]

Carrots. Nice one, that's helpful stuff. Didn't know the ALT + arrows trick, that's nifty.

[@yvetteaguirre9522]

🥕🥕🥕🥕 I never was too certain about kerning till now… best tutorial ever!

[@marcusgraham6695]

Hey Will, I just watched your video on kearning and I dig it! I've never heard of it before but I've been doing it for 40 years. I look forward to learning more and watching my artwork grow. Thank you for the knowledge and I tried the Kerntype game and got a 70, 81 and 100. It's interesting to me how this process gratifies me so much and some folks just think that I'm easily ammused

[@mohsinhanif8817]

Informative... This subject is underrated...

[@kierkegaardi]

6:16 e goes one step right, then two steps left, then one step right - perfection!

[@totallysxmmyyt6787]

Again, Well done! I am teaching a typography course and I will direct my students to they channel.

[@rushyit]

This topic is really really need to talk about! Thanks mate

[@digitalcatto]

Walling looks like Notion, which it's what i use. Good carrots colleague!!

[@joshizposh1995]

How accurate is selecting optical kerning in illustrator? I find that to be pretty accurate

[@jeswin_josu]

I've been learning so much recently from your videos and logo reviews. Thank you 😊.

[@6831kenny]

Carrots does helps me alot, and now I'm editing my fonts kerning

[@jjfecik]

Such a great video & it is great to hear your perspective. I find myself naturally going a bit wider with my kerning sometimes so I like to see your narrow balance. I also love carrots 🥕

[@raydillon]

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

[@jjfecik]

I love the game too!! 🤣

[@Deanieboy876]

Trust me, everyone watches your videos to the end. We may skip the square space bit lol but we watch it all. Carrots!

[@giuliobaecker5476]

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

[@Aditya_paniker]

Hi I wanted to know if kerning is required for script fonts too? What can be done in that case?

[@davidwalls2304]

Carrots. Will, enjoyed this video. Kearning seems easy (for a non designer) but can be tricky to really pick up.

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@matthewgillespie]

Carrots! Thanks for a quality video. There are only a couple of good ones on this topic on KZbin.

[@cordellvandermerwe536]

it’s good to revisit the basics from a different perspective. The blur technique is quite interesting and will use it time to time. Thanks bru.

[@willpatersondesign]

Glad it was helpful!

[@BenRawson78]

Carrots Great to learn something new - not a designer, but always good to add knowledge as you never know when you need it - cheers

[@richbaker8211]

Carrots! Great video and very informative! Will certainly be checking out that Kerning game to test myself regularly. Many thanks!

[@richardburton7604]

Carrots! Very helpful. Thanks Will 👌

[@raashidnihan1086]

Carrots! I always wanted to hear you about kerning. So when I saw this video I clicked on the spot. 🙂

[@RobertFleming]

Yes! Someone else who nerds out about fonts and design.

[@JohnVenters]

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?

[@potradio]

I always use the "optical" setting.

[@potradio]

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.

[@jensche21]

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.

[@prashadlodhia]

@@jensche21 How's the kerning on Google Fonts, any idea?

[@jensche21]

@@prashadlodhia it depends on each foundry/font…

[@processandbeing]

I get asked to use other languages in design. Any thoughts or resources on kerning, say, Arabic? Korean? Hindi?

[@caleblichty2494]

Best carrots explanation video!

[@karlcraddock3327]

Carrots! Love it, thanks will!!! 🙏🏻

[@lucarapisarda687]

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

[@lilboat8421]

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

[@rbdel]

Can I just do this in inkscape Type > break apart > align (evenly space horizontally)?

[@J03x2]

Carrots. would love to see more videos on this from such an intelligent mind. would also love to no more about the 'glyphs' programme you was using in this video! and last but not least, thank you for you advice in helping me better my design skills!

[@GalacticHeroOfTime]

Thanks for the tips Will! Great explanation! I’ll have to try out the kerning game. Lol!

[@MiSaLiAnW]

How much time do you invest into kerning? Do you kern in the whole text or only in headlines?

[@Dunikal]

Carrots a year later. Learning so much here, thanks for the content!

[@LeviTheEditor]

I learned a lot today about kerning. Not a lot about carrots, though. ;)

[@Cell_melton]

Hi! Where can I find that amazing keyboard at??

[@iamapie13]

It's like the negative space in a drawing, the space between 2 subject is still important for compelling composition

[@PorscheFan-g5z]

Spot on.

[@aliabbas-mk6ne]

You can teach how to adjust expanded text kerning?

[@KariMonsterrr]

Thank you for the wonderful advice!!! 🥕 🥕 🥕

[@dan_iel_efs]

Interesting seeing you doing this video. The other day I think I saw one of your logos with a kerning issue!

[@Ken.Howard]

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.

[@willpatersondesign]

Haha, that's great!

[@randatatang9222]

I honestly didn't know. Thanks Paterson

[@stupidnb7]

Carrot! Anyway maybe you can show us how to “tracking” professionally for title or logotype

[@sagunmdr]

Just stumbled upon here and the 6yo video of yours paying the kerning game, it was so terreble pretty sure you were faking it,😂😂. Look at you now how you changed and how professional you've become now :)

[@dantierandbalogh]

Tomatoes. Might have skipped the end, but gotta go & try this kerning game right now! 🤫😜 Laz

[@tracik1277]

Thanks for this! In my first job back in 1989, I did manual typesetting and had to do everything by eye. I used to love doing this part of my work. Upon the advent of digital typesetting, I really noticed the quality of typesetting go down the drain for years, it was so depressing to see. I never went into digital work for that reason. I think things have improved over the years, but at first it was awful.

[@kellysands792]

I began in 1986 and would agree that typography in general has slipped. Having to manually adjust headline type etc was a great learning opportunity.

[@ayayusuf4366]

LOOK at That mechanical keyboard !🔥🔥💜⌨️

[@RacoonMedia]

carrots man... great content. I learned a few tricks. Seems I did kern relatively well by myself intuitively, But now I understand the why even better. thank you

[@cristiana982]

carrots. thanks for this video. i'm an amateur but i love to dabble, i knew about kerning but this confirmed a lot of things i suspected to be true. great video!

[@antoinehernandez135]

Definitely carrots. Thank you sooo much for the value provided :).

[@dsulvadarius]

Blurring the font as an alternative to squinting is a brilliant idea.

[@chipcurry]

Very good, I learned a lot from your video as usual! My only problem is that the music is a little bit distracting. Otherwise, thanks very much for being out there.

[@kreative_kam]

You learn something new everyday. Great video! Carrots