Typography is so fundamental to just about any form of design that anyone hoping to make a living in the industry would do well to familiarize themselves as much as possible with its terms and principles, even if they never intend to create their own typeface.

The logotype is often the most crucial part of a logo design, but a website, business card or packaging design that uses illegible or messy fonts is useless no matter how well-executed the rest of the concept is. This is why we have previously taken you through the ins and outs of typographical terms, giving you a basic understanding of what all those curves and squiggles actually are, and how they fit into the overall typeface.

But there's so much more to it than that, as the empty spaces between the letters are just as important as the letters themselves to create a truly successful typeface. Without appropriate spacing, letters become indistinguishable from one another or whole words turn into lonely letters floating in nothingness.

So once you've studied up on your ascenders and identified all your stems and bowls, it's time to dive into the exciting world of leading, tracking and kerning. Congratulations – you've made it to advanced typeface-foo.

Leading

Leading is the aspect of typography design which determines how text is spaced vertically across lines. Usually, if you want text that is easily readable across multiple lines, you need to ensure that you have equal lead spacing.

Leading is spaced from the baseline of each line of text, so make sure your leading distance allows for your ascenders and descenders not to bleed into one another. Too much of a leading distance can also be problematic however, as it might interfere with the natural flow of the text.

To determine if you're leading distance is appropriate, ask yourself if the text is easily legible and if at the end of each line your eye is naturally drawn to the beginning of the next. If your answer is no to either of those questions, you might need to consider some adjustments.

Tracking

Tracking involves the adjustment of spacing throughout a block of text. It is mainly used to increase legibility for text such as magazine articles, finding a balance between legible, properly spaced text, and a visually pleasing overall layout.

Once you and your client are happy with your tracking, avoid making adjustments to it at all costs, because even small changes can have huge impacts on layout and legibility. If you must adjust certain words, wave goodbye to tracking and say hello to its persnickety little brother; kerning.

Kerning

Now don't go and confuse kerning and tracking (too many people do). Kerning is the much more subtle art of individually adjusting the space between letters to elevate your typography from good to amazing. This is important as two letters placed too close together become illegible, whereas letters too far apart stop creating a word altogether.

A good example of where kerning needs to be fiddled with is between the capital letters A and V, which would be too far apart when next to one another if not adjusted properly. The natural shape of letters can easily cause an illusion of uneven spacing when not paying attention to kerning, which will create just enough visual chaos in your design to keep it from perfection. If you don't know about kerning, you'll know something is wrong, but you might not know what.

Take for example Google's 2014 logo overhaul, which saw the 'g' moved one pixel to the right, and the 'l' one pixel down and to the right. For the expert eye, this simple change makes a huge difference.

Truth be told, most people likely can't even notice the difference in the above image, and it'll probably take some time to kern yourself to perfect visual perception, but trust me, once it clicks, you'll see terribly kerned writing everywhere you look.

Want More?

In design, creative vision means a lot, but technical know-how is what gets you to the top of the pile. If you need a refresher, study up here:

4 Reasons Why Research Will Make You A Better Designer

Letter Logos on BrandCrowd

Typographic Terms Every Designer Should Know

Design Principles: 6 Design Fundamentals to Guide Your Work

Written by Divya Abe on Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Divya Abe is an expert graphic designer ready to share her knowledge with the crowd. Besides spending quality time on the internet she enjoys anything to do with cats. Get in touch via Google+.