10 typography tricks every designer should know

01. Kern upside down

Kerning upside down is a well-used and tested technique

Why would you want to kern character pairs upside down? Because thi enable you to see your letterforms and the space between them without actually reading the words - bringing meaning to them. If you're doing something fancy with the kerning based on the meaning, it won't work, of corse, but otherwise it's a well-used and tested technique and one you should try if you're struggling with kerning character pairs.

02. Blur it

Blurring enables you to focus on the contrast and white space of the letterforms

Another tested technique is to either blur (perhaps take a screenshot and blur it in Photoshop – or more likely squint a little bit) Like Brian Hoff says in this excellent article (See more expert kerning tricks in this brilliant article from Brian Hoff.) "I like to blur my eyesight a bit by squinting or crossing my eyes. This enables me to focus on the contrast and white space of the letterforms without becoming distracted by the characters themselves." It's a great technique - and you'll learn many more from Brian's excellent tips.

03. Kern with balloons

Aim to space the letters so that the balloons fit exactly between them

Another, perhaps more abstract kerning tip (and one designer Tom Sewell taught us a long time ago) is to imagine that between each letter there are balloons of equal size and volume, forcing the letters apart. As Tom told us, "aim to space the letters so that the balloons fit exactly between them without being squeezed out above and below". It's an interesting technique, and one that can prove very handy.

04. Use 'o' to space words

Another tip is to always consider the spaces before and after the word you’re working on and ensure that they are spaced correctly visually. A good rule of thumb is to imagine that the character 'o' sits between each word (thanks again to Tom for that one).

05. Rough out headlines

When working with sans serif headlines, make sure you get a rough tracking before you kern

In headlines, kerning and tracking is most obvious - so it's essential to get it right. And sans serif fonts can accentuate your mistakes.
When working with sans serif headlines, make sure you get a rough tracking before you kern. If you have to put -10 kerning between almost every character combination, you should be using tracking at -10 before you do your individual character spacing.
This works for numbers too. The numeral ‘1’ with anything before or after it - ‘213’, for example, or even a space - will always benefit from a tighter kern. More than one ‘1’, for example, combinations such as ‘11’, need really tight kerning. (Thanks to Computer Arts for that tip.)

06. Forget about small caps

Never just shrink full-size caps down and call them small caps

John D Berry knows his stuff - after all, he's written several books on type and typography, including 'Type & Typography' published by Mark Batty. His top tip? Unless you know the difference between true small caps and fake ones, it's best to just forget that your design app's Small Caps command exists. Never just shrink full-size caps down and call them small caps: they aren't. If you're willing to go to the trouble of using real small caps, be sure to letter-space them properly - that is, a little looser than lowercase.

07. Keep the font count low

The result will be cleaner and sharper if your font count is low

It's important to think of your type as a whole in your project. When you use more than three fonts - maybe a slab, a serif and a display in your project - it can sometimes be difficult to read and understand; the project can lack order. Usually, one font has different weights and you can create a stunning, and simple design solution using these in the correct way. The result will be cleaner and sharper. So think about whether you need many fonts or a better job can be done with different weights of one. Thanks to Hey Studio for that one.

08. Rental revolution

Skyfonts rectifies the problem of trying fonts to their full capacity before you purchase

There's a new rental service in town - and it rectifies the age-old problem of trying fonts to their full capacity before you pull the trigger and purchase. That service is called Skyfonts from Monotype and enables you to try any font from its library for five minutes, for free.
You can also use credits to rent a font for a day or a month - depending on your needs. Sure, many foundries enable you to test out characters on their site, but it's not the same as trying them out in your preferred layout/design app. After all, the feeling of a particular font can be hard to find until you start combining words.

09. Don't push it (unless you really want/need to)

If you're going to edit a font, make sure it's with good reason

Unless you're after a specific effect (or working on an illustrated piece) don't stretch, skew or otherwise alter fonts by messing with their dimensions after turning to outlines. You wouldn't stretch a photo or refined vector piece and you can often end up with an ugly, amateurish result. If you're going to edit a font, make sure it's with good reason, and make sure you don't ruin hours of the type designer's work.

10. Think of type as a voice

Here's an interesting tip we picked up from Hoon Kim (of Why Not Smile: "To deal with type is much the same as to control one's voice: [think of] selecting typefaces as voice quality; having a relationship with type in size, amount and degrees as vocal tone; and setting layouts of type as voices in space and time. Typographic design is visible as well as audible. If you have a great scenario, now it is time to cast good actors."