AI Kerning

[SERIFA]

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

[Mike Witherell]

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.

[SERIFA]

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).