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SERIFA
SERIFA
Participant
January 26, 2024
Question

AI Kerning

  • January 26, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 984 views

Hi,

 

It would be extremely helpful if one could set a font not only to metric and optical settings but also to AI. An AI that optimally balances character spacing would be very helpful, for example, in logo lettering.

 

Best,

C

    1 reply

    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Mike WitherellCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 26, 2024

    That is essentially what Optical attempts to do. But it still needs your input: On big lettering, the subtle spacing decision is still the practice of Authentic Intelligence© from a human artistic judgment.

    Mike Witherell
      SERIFA
      SERIFAAuthor
      Participant
      January 26, 2024

      Hi Mike,

       

      Indeed, Optical kerning aims to address spacing issues, and human artistic judgment remains vital, especially in large lettering. Integrating AI in typography to augment these human decisions for tasks like logo design or text formatting. An example from 2017 illustrates this potential: Simon Cozens trained a neural network to kern a font, using well-kerned fonts for training. The network could classify kern pairs with high accuracy, demonstrating AI's capability in understanding kerning principles, although further development was needed. This project highlights AI's potential in typography as a complement to human creativity and precision.

       

      Best,

      C

       

      For more details on Simon Cozens' project, you can check out the discussion on TypeDrawers: I trained a neural network to kern a font (mostly).

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