It's Kerning, Not Keming
Let's talk Keming! What is this strange word? What does it mean?
Fellow designers may have caught my little joke (Kerning with bad kerning is kerming, get it?) but proper kerning is no laughing matter. By all means, don't just take my word for it. See the logos below that learned the hard way?
While the results are humorous to us, they are a major disaster for the brand
Kerning is essentially the space between letters that effects the look and feel of the word (Not to be mistaken for Tracking, that's a different topic for another day). Having the skill to manage kerning properly is one of those subtleties that separates a designer from your buddy Phil who downloaded Photoshop last weekend and can "like, totally make a logo for you bro". (Unless of course you want that sort of aesthetic).
So, why is it so important? The fact of the matter is that kerning can make or break a logo, advertisement, billboard, etc and while you may get attention for it - it almost certainly won't be the kind of attention you had hoped for when you invested all that money in some fancy design. Especially when it was a large budget branding project!
Good kerning keeps your typography balanced, bad kerning makes your typography into a joke (sometimes, other times it's just bad to look at). I invite other designers, and anyone who is NOT a designer, to join the discussion in the comments by answering this question:
Was there ever a time when Kerning (either bad or good) affected your brand? How? and what was the lesson you took away, if any at all?
Bonus: Do you want to test your kerning skills? http://type.method.ac/ is a fun kerning game for designers to play with proper kerning and test their abilities against the computer. How did you do?
(My highest score is 100/100 but who's counting?)
