Optical Vs. Metric Kerning

Of course they can. Designers are just as capable of making mistakes as are programmers. But they do deserve a different name. That's why I call them design bugs.

Dave

Then they cannot, by definition, be bugs.

"A bug, also referred to as a software bug, is an error or flaw in a computer program that may prevent it from working correctly or produce an incorrect or unintended result."

Yours
Vern

It is worth mentioning that with CS4, this can be resolved using a GREP style if you want to stay with metrics for the rest of the font.

And, fwiw, there are a number of as designed features in InDesign for which I would apply the label design bug. In fact, it's always been my opinion that design bugs are worse than regular bugs because they actually intended that it work that way!

Dave

Reread my posts - I'm not trying to persuade you that it's a good idea and I've never even said that I like that style myself. But it's not an error. That's like calling an ID feature that works as designed a "bug" simply because you would rather it worked a different way. And, I think that such differences of opinion between the designer's and the user's kerning preferences are best sorted out by a kerning editor, not an optical algorithm.

And that, in my opinion, is the mistake made by the kerning -- although you are saying that it is not a mistake but deliberate -- taking two bites out of the same cherry so that space all but disappears.

Just because the type designer thinks this is a good idea is not going to persuade me that it is.

Dave

>So why then is this only applicable to sentences that start with T and W?

It's not. But when a sentence starts with a T, the space under the bar of the T was considered sufficient differention (as I say, "true optical kerning"). Same with W and A and V and Y. Those letters have space to the left because of their design and are kerned more tightly than, say, a I or an H.

So why then is this only applicable to sentences that start with T and W?

I have no objection at all to the negative 125 applied to period-space. It's when you combine that with the negative 100 applied to space-T that the problem rears.

It's worse in Gill Sans bold where the combination amounts to negative 250.

Dave

In my brief google, I couldn't come up with a better example than this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Harry_Johnston_memorial_plaque.JPG

it's Gill's stonecutting rather than typesetting but it does illutrate the point I (and Vern) are making. Note especially the last line, where spaces are omitted where commas are present, because the white space around the commas was thought sufficient to break the text.

I agree with Dominic about Gill Sans. The font is spaced pretty much the way Gill designed it, and if you check out the avant garde typography of the period, you'll see plenty of similar spacings.

Yours
Vern

>Of course it's an error.

No, I believe it's an intentional design decision made to reflect a style of typesetting that used to be more common. To call it an error means I could call any of your work I aesthetically dislike an error, which I'm sure you would disagree with. It's also akin to saying the old typesetting habit of putting em spaces after full points is an error just because most people don't follow that style anymore. I haven't seen many books set these days with diminished space after full points but I have seen them.

>I think the main issue is people are using optical kerning when what they really want is optimal tracking.

I haven't seen any evidence that this is the case. If people just want to track text, they have far greater control with the tracking setting and I don't see how they'd miss that and instead chooose optical kerning.