OUGD504- Type Research

KERNING

The term kerning refers to adjusting the space between two letters. 

If letters in a typeface are spaced too uniformly, they make a pattern that doesn’t look uniform enough. 

Gaps occur, for example, around letters whose forms angle outward or frame an open space (W, Y, V, T, L).

TRACKING

Adjusting the overall spacing of a group of letters is called tracking or letterspacing. 

By expanding the tracking across a word, line, or entire block of text, the designer can create a more airy, open field. 

In blocks of text, tracking is usually applied in small increments, creating a subtle effect not noticeable to the casual reader. 

Occasionally, a single word or phrase is tracked for emphasis, especially when CAPS or small caps are used within a line. 

Negative tracking, rarely desirable in text sizes, can be used sparingly to help bring up a short line of text. 

White type on a black background is considered more legible when it is tracked.

LEADING

The distance from the baseline of one line of type to another is called line spacing.

It is also called leading, in reference to the strips of lead used to separate lines of metal type. 

The default setting in most layout and imaging software is 120 percent of the type size. 

Thus 10-pt type is set with 12 pts of line spacing. 

Designers play with line spacing in order to create distinctive typographic arrangements. 

Reducing the standard distance creates a denser typographic color, while risking collisions between ascenders and descenders. 

Expanding the line spacing creates a lighter, more open text block. As leading increases, lines of type become independent graphic elements rather than parts of an overall visual shape and texture.

READABILITY/LEGIBILITY 

Legibility 

-can be defined as the ability a human reader to read something without effort. It can depend on many things. Often, the size of font chosen restricts legibility. For our purposes though, legibility is discussed in light of typeface choice.

Readability 

-can be defined not on a letter by letter basis, but how he combination of letter are read within a larger body of text. In other words, readability is defined by the amount of effort one needs to make to read text, not single characters.

On the left we have what is called readable type, while on the right we have a legible type.