Studio task - Kerndown

'Kerndown'

Kerning is the spacing between individuals letters and can be vital in design as intended message can very quickly become distorted. 

 
  

Figure 1

To consolidate lecture on kerning, branding and grids, a studio task was set which would highlight the impact kerning can have on particular impressions that a brand can give. The task was to arrange the letters using kerning that would be thought to portray the type of branding that was required by that shop/company/product. 

 

Figure 2

Figure 1 & 2 show how important kerning is, as the word can very easily go from the name 'Ben D', to the physical movement  'Bend'. When spacing letters, it is important to consider the point of the message so that the audience takes from it what you intended. 

The first type of branding was for a luxury car brand. The instinctual response was to use the capital letters and space them evenly across the baseline. This may have been influenced by other car brands such as ‘BMW’, but this kerning represents formality and high quality which are elements that would be expected from a high quality car brand.

The next was for a cheap food brand so the informality was achieved by slanting the letters slightly, easing some off of the baseline and keeping the kerning very tight. After consideration, it was then decided that maybe basic kerning would have worked better because it would suggest that not a lot of of design focus has been budgeted for as the slanting and raising of letters from the baseline would take a lot more time and consideration. 

The next kerning was for a condom company.

The idea was to overlap the letters so that a condom outline was created. This displayed an element of playfulness and character by rotating the letter ’N’. The problem with this was that the informality would reduce the trust in a company which is meant to provide trust for the users and ensure that the condom is official and serves its purpose. To improve, the raising of one letter to create a slight arch or to represent the shape of a condom may work better and look more official and trustworthy. 

Next was the kerning which would best represent an indie band. An indie band is seen to be alternative and slightly different, despite keeping the appearance very clean and not cheesy. The use of all capitals and one lowercase is something usually seen in and titles, so the lowercase ‘e’ works well to fit this norm. The ‘e’ round the wrong way was something thought to be a feature that was important to the branding style for this type of band as it add something different to the personality of the word. The tight kerning was an important design decision as too many changes to the kerning and position of letters would make the title appear messy and disorganised. 

The last was an IT company which requires a sense of uniformity. An I.T company connects systems to others and logically sorts information and software, so a simple and neat kerning system would work the best to represent this. The letters need to look as thought they were placed together as the company does connect people, but by keeping a slight space, the title does not become playful which is important because it is a serious service that is offered. As a group it was decided that these two lowercase letters could be envisioned as a logo representing and I.T company or something similar.