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Participant
August 2, 2017
Question

Does outlining fonts make them thicker?

  • August 2, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1660 views

I am creating a corporate logo that will be distributed to dozens of offices for use across multiple platforms and applications, so the logotype (corporate name) under the brandmark (graphic/icon) will need to be outlined.


I understand that mechanically they are the same... I can take an uppercase (live font)  light blue 'A' and place it over a matching (outlined font) yellow and the lines match exactly  (and I get a green 'A').  But when I review printouts, the outlined version of the logo is thicker than the live text version  (I'm using an Avenir font, btw).

So maybe my issue is with either the print device or the Postscript language being lost when the font is outlined... but it even looks different on-screen. Input welcomed. Thank you!

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2 replies

hammer0909
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2017

Monica's right. For larger text, you'll never see the difference but body copy sized text will generally look thicker because you lose the hinting information.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 2, 2017

In a logo type should be outlined for a variety of reasons.

But depending on the output device text is treated differently than paths. The text has hinting information that is used to adapt to the device's resolution.