
Ask HN: Is there a method for finding the optimal kerning? - valine
So I&#x27;ve had this question for a while now and a recent article about Google&#x27;s new logo re-piqued my curiosity.  Is there a commonly used method for determining with some amount of consistency an athletically pleasing kerning, or is the process completely subjective?  It seems like it should be possible to build a formula that takes into account the area of the characters positive and negative shapes, the arch length of the character&#x27;s border, maybe the color and opacity, or some combination of those things.  Does something like this exist?
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JamesMcMinn
I don't think that there's such a thing as the optimal kerning. Whilst there
are a bunch of rules and guidelines you should follow [1], it's quite a
subjective process.

Kern Type [2] is an interesting game to play which allows you to compare your
kerning against that of a typographer. It's a fun way to burn a few minutes
and learn a bit about kerning.

[1] [https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2014/01/20/11-kerning-
ti...](https://99designs.com/designer-blog/2014/01/20/11-kerning-tips/)

[2] [http://type.method.ac/](http://type.method.ac/)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
"Optimal" means "looks right (or at least not-wrong) to the most people". For
that, there's heuristics at best.

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andyjohnson0
_" It seems like it should be possible to build a formula ..."_

I seem to remember that Knuth's Metafont [1] has a DSL for specifying kerning.
I don't know if it produces optimal results (whatever that means) but it might
be a place to start.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafont](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafont)

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panic
There was some discussion of this topic on typographica back in 2004:
[http://typographica.org/on-typography/automated-kerning-
with...](http://typographica.org/on-typography/automated-kerning-with-ikern/)

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brudgers
It seems like the sort of activity where machine learning might be a good
approach to automation, i.e. where a computer could produce output _like_ that
of a typographer.

~~~
valine
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I wonder how big the data set would have to
be. Finding a sufficient number of fonts with quality kerning might be a
challenge.

~~~
brudgers
Just off the top of my head, I think there are stages to the problem. The
first is classifying the quality of kerning. For that the training set would
be pages of good and bad typography. The second stage is constructing good
pages from a single set of glyphs. Programs like Amazon's Kindle do this
reasonably [I'm not sure they use kerning] in real time with very limited
computational resources. For typography, several orders of magnitude more
resources could be employed in batch mode to achieve better results. The final
stage would be generalizing the ability to layout a single set of glyphs to
any arbitrary set.

The good news is that there are many examples for the first task and good
tooling to accomplish it. For the same reasons that generalizing layout is a
later step, restricting the domain to a single format such as journal articles
or "For Dummies..." style books is a good way to go if possible. In other
words, start with the narrow case.

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cmcleod
There absolutely IS such a thing as optimal kerning. But, my take, as someone
who has done it many, many times is that “optimal” means you do it, rather
than you don’t do it.

In fact, there’s even a commonly used formula for it, though–to the best of my
knowledge—not written in code. Good designers are taught this formula at one
point or another. (And once you know the formula, you know who hasn’t been
taught.)

This is probably going to be a way longer answer than expected, but if anyone
wants to take this and do an excellent job automating it into design software,
I will be a huge fan.

A) First thing, just to make sure we’re all on the same page:

Kerning = the space in-between two letters. ONLY two letters. Tracking/letter-
spacing = the space between all of the letters in a body of text. And when
altered, applied to an entire body of text.

B) Second thing: Defining “optimal”

Most typefaces/fonts are designed for average use. That is to say, its optimal
state is as paragraph text. When you make text really big, like in a headline,
sometimes weird spaces show up between letters. These spaces don’t matter at
small sizes but make the letters look cheap and amateurish when they’re big.
And, they look unprofessional when the word is important, like a logo. So,
kerning manipulates the space between letters to make the word or words look
more professional and considered.

(This is the crux of designers’ analysis of Alphabet’s logo—it’s freaking
Google. It’s worth getting it right.)

C) Third thing: The Formula, or How To Kern

Here’s the secret: it’s hard to perfectly kern something when you’re looking
at the entire word. So, don’t look at the entire word. Look at three letters
at a time. Cover the others up with paper (a sticky note works well for
screens). For those three letters, make sure that middle letter looks balanced
and not like it’s drifting to one side or another. You can manipulate that
space by moving either the first, second, or third letter. You can make the
whole set wider. You can make the whole set narrower. You’re in charge. Just
make it balanced.

Then, shift your three letter “window” to the right or left (I recommend
right) by one character. Moving ONLY that new character, make it balanced with
the two from the original set. Then repeat that process until you finish the
whole word. And then go back and adjust the whole thing all over again if it
still looks unbalanced.

There’s a reason you typically only kern logos or reasonably short headlines.
It takes forever.

D) Fourth thing: Kerning affects the “vibe” of the logo

Tight kerning where the letters touch or almost touch each other feels big,
corporate, and sometimes a little dated. Think: FedEx, Newsweek, Infosys, or
Oracle.

Really wide kerning where the letters are quite far from each other tends to
feel futuristic and elite. And, these are almost always in all-caps. Think:
Uber, Prada, and approximately one million hipster logos from 2013. And take
my word on this one, you should just never bother with a spaced out word or
logo that’s upper and lower case. Just let that idea go, please. Not worth the
aesthetic agony and designer backlash.

Last but not least: Reasonable kerning widths, where there is space between
letters but not tons of space, feel like the “norm core” of kerning. Which (in
my opinion) is a good thing. And this is what Alphabet’s logo is going for.
It’s neutral, and feels humble, but smart. More down-to-earth than wide
kerning, and more youthful than tight kerning.

Pro-tip: Reasonably normal kerning widths in all caps can look amateurish.
Consider making the spaces bigger (more Uber-ish) or switching to upper and
lowercase.

If you read through all of that, thank you for your time.

My tip to someone who would like to automate this process using a dataset—make
you have data from different type sizes, because type size is the biggest
determining factor in “optimal” kerning. Good luck!

