The good, the bad, and the negative

When you think of spacing you probably just think of the
space between lines and maybe even just double space
and forget. However even one pixel could be the difference
between good design and a type crime. In this section we
will discuss the tracking, kering, and leading of type.

Kerning

Kerning

Kerning is the spacial adjustment
of individual letters in a word. Many
fonts were made to be used around 10
or 14 points in size. This is important
because as text gets bigger so does
the space between them.

Font Size

Font size and spacing is measured in
units called points. An individual point is
.013 inches in size. One point is also
equal to one pixel in size so if you
can read screen resolutions the
conversion is pretty easy.

Ligatures

Sometimes kerning will apply
automatically to certain letter
combinations. These are known
as ligatures which are two letters
are combined together into a
single new form.

Some examples are fi and fl. You can
see an example of this yourself by taking
out your phone or going to Microsoft Word.

Tracking

Tracking

Tracking is the spacial adjustment of
entire words on a line. It is commonly
used to tighen up text and add an extra
layer of polish to a body of text.

Text Rags

While the primary use of tracking is
to increase readability of legibility
another use is to get rid of text rags.
Text rags are edges of body text that
are sharp, jagged, and inconsistant.

Tracking Fixes

Using tracking to fix a body of text is
that it helps get rid of orphans, widows, and
rivers in text. Orphans are a single word
on the last line of text and widows are
a single word on another line of text
altogether.Rivers are white spaces in a
body of text that when combined
togheter run through text

Leading

Leading

Leading is the vertical space between
lines of text. Double spacing is fine for
most scenario's, but the excess white
space can be jarring to read.

Orientation

Two of the biggest uses for leading are
stacked type and vertical type. Proper
leading with stacked type can create
new shapes from the letters creating
a more appealing logo. Vertical type
however should be avoided line the
plague. It is a type crime in any situation
it is used in.