From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography

Unlock this course with a free trial

Join today to access over 24,000 courses taught by industry experts.

24 Adjust leading and kerning for large text

24 Adjust leading and kerning for large text

From the course: The 33 Laws of Typography

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

24 Adjust leading and kerning for large text

“

- Law 24, Adjust Leading and Kerning for Large Text. Let's start with a few definitions. What is leading? Leading is the amount of vertical space between two lines of text, and leading is measured from the baseline of one line of text to the baseline of another. Leading is also called line spacing. Leading is automatically set by the software you're using, and the default amount of leading is usually 20 percent. So, if you're using 10 point text, default leading is going to be 12 points. What is kerning? Kerning is the amount of horizontal space between two letters. Don't confuse kerning with tracking or letter spacing. Tracking is uniform horizontal spacing across a range of characters, and remember kerning deals with the amount of horizontal spacing between just two specific letters. Most typefaces have what are called built-in kerning tables, and these kerning tables, their job is to automatically adjust the amount of space between certain letter pairs. Why do certain letter pairs…

Contents