Used to hand-set every kerning pair in my zines, now I just trust the defaults

A few months back I spent 3 hours tweaking letter spacing on a 16-page zine about local punk shows. Then I realized nobody noticed the difference except me. Now I just let the type software do its thing and focus on the paper stock instead. Anyone else stop sweating the tiny stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

zarak1814d ago

Used to obsess over leading matching my baseline grids, now I just hit auto and call it done.

seth_nguyen2d ago

That part about nobody noticing the difference really hit home for me. I spent a whole weekend manually adjusting kerning on a 20-page music fanzine a few years back, only to have a friend flip through it and ask about the paper. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you're right that details like texture and stock matter more to most people than perfect letter spacing.

betty_shah14d ago

72 hours into a 48-page punk zine I finally admitted to myself that 99% of readers can't tell the difference between tight kerning and whatever the default is. Felt like a huge weight lifted when I just hit "auto" on the tracking and went back to choosing a nice uncoated paper instead. In my experience the tactile stuff like paper weight and texture gets way more happy reactions than micro-typographic precision.