Best practice for kerning?
benwiggy
Posts: 1
The biggest issue in font design seems to be kerning. I spend about eight times longer messing around with kerning than I do with actually making the design. Kerning is always the first thing that gets criticised; and the inevitability of 'missing one' is a huge frustration.
What's the best way to ensure decent kerning? FontLab's automatic kerning of certain pairs (but not all pairs) is 'non-optimal' – but it strikes me that kerning is exactly the sort of thing that computers ought to be doing for us, yet neither FontLab nor Glyphs do this well, if at all, without third-party python scripts, etc.
Currently, I'm just setting large swathes of text in my font, or creating random combinations of glyphs, looking through it, and then manually adjusting by eye in FontLab when I see something that looks wrong.
What's the best way to ensure decent kerning? FontLab's automatic kerning of certain pairs (but not all pairs) is 'non-optimal' – but it strikes me that kerning is exactly the sort of thing that computers ought to be doing for us, yet neither FontLab nor Glyphs do this well, if at all, without third-party python scripts, etc.
Currently, I'm just setting large swathes of text in my font, or creating random combinations of glyphs, looking through it, and then manually adjusting by eye in FontLab when I see something that looks wrong.
Am I missing something? Thanks.
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You need sets of systematic test strings that you can step through, targeting individual pair combinations in context. Here, for example, is my basic set for Latin lc-to-lc spacing and kerning. The pain in kerning is not this stuff: it’s the exceptions for diacritic letters.Aaa bazaarab habitsac backad hadrianae achaeaaf cafeteriaag haggardah maharajaai saidaj majorak makeal calipham samean randomao extraordinaryap perhapsaq radiopaquear shareas chaseat hateau becauseav haveaw hawkax taxmanay maypoleaz magazineaß AnmaßlichkeitBba lambadabb lobbybc subcommitteebd subdividebe amberbf clubfootbg subgroupbh clubhousebi ambivalentbj subjectbk subkingdombl publicbm submarinebn obnoxiousbo aboutbp bombproofbq subqualitybr ambrosiabs observedbt obtainedbu ambulancebv obviouslybw subwaybx subxerophilousby cubbyholebz subzoneCca incancb ecboliccc accordingcd anecdotece sincerecf flicflaccg ecgoninech anchoviesci recitecj arcjetck recklesscl disclosecm acmecn picnicco beachcombercp ecphonesiscq acquirecr acrosscs politicsct factualcu haircutcv mechanicvillecw cwmcx acxoyatlcy adipocytecz eczemaDda pendantdb goodbyedc broadcastdd addedde madderdf grandfatherdg knowledgedh childhooddi 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Obviously, there’s a lot of stuff in that list that doesn’t require kerning, or that will be covered by class kerning. I still find it useful to see everything, and to see combinations popping up in different contexts, because I find it helps to ireratively review and refine.1
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