Kerning, Branding and Grids

09.10.16

Kerning is the spacing that we find in-between the letters within word and/or sentence. 

The study task that was given was called ‘Kerndown’, the aim was to use appropriate kerning between the letters we had been given to represent the appropriate company.

The first kerndown was a luxury car brand. It was decided that the qualities that would be present in the typography for a luxury car brand would be the use of capital letters of a high quality and even spacing between the letters. It was thought that this would give the type a formal look complimenting the idea of the brand being luxury. The example of this can be seen in figure 1. 

The second kerndown was to produce an appropriate type and kerning between letters for a budget food brand. As shown in figure 2, for this it was decided that the word would start with a capital letter and then the rest would be lower case. The letters are close together and have a more informal feel about them, to demonstrate this they have not all been placed on the baseline. It is very basic and uses basic kerning throughout. To improve, it could have been more simplistic and not moved so many of the letter off of the baseline as it could be seen as messy rather than informal.  

The third was to create the look and feel of a condom company type using kerning as the main element being changed. A condom company would need to be seen as clean and safe which is why the letters are all overlapping as it creates a trustworthy feel to the design. However it does still need to involve some sort of playfulness which is why the ’N’ has been turned around to make the design a little bit more cheeky. The example can be seen in figure 3.

The fourth kerndown was for an Indie band. Indie bands are seen to be individual and original so therefore the type need to look a little different. It was decided that it needed to have a picturesque look about it, therefore the ‘e’ has been turned the wrong way and moved off of the baseline to add a subtle difference that makes the design more original. This can been seen in figure 4

The last company we were given was an IT company. Figure 5 shows the design created. It has fairly tight kerning and is very neat and professional looking. It was decided that it needed to look simple and formal creating the feel of uniformity as IT help people across the world. It was also discussed that it needed to be a serious design as nowadays IT is a massive role in the connections and communications of everyone all over the world.

This task demonstrated that it is vital for kerning to be correct to allow for the correct personality and feel to be portrayed within the typography and logo design for a company. This is because it changes the way that a word or phrase is seen or read by the naked eye and defines the way in which we view a company.