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I'm working in Illustrator.
The default letter-spacing (Auto) doesn't look very good.
I think changing kerning to Optical is already an improvement.
That said I still think there are a few issues.
EL vs LI
UST
But I'm no expert, so I was looking for some feedback on how to improve it manually.
Thanks!
Full size here
There is always kerning issues when you display text on large sizes. You need to kern it manually.
I suggest that you begin with the most difficult pair, in this case RL and and continue by adjusting all the other pairs until you achieve balance.
I almost always adjust it manually, even in preformatted headlines in our newspaper. Most fonts just aren't built to handle larger sizes and sometimes I feel like font designers spend far too little time on character spacing. No matter, I've got option+left/right ...
I try to talk about some of these things at http://drpgraphicdesign.com/blog/ but, I get overwhelmed with things to talk about. As far as advertisement design, paying special attention to it in headings is extremely important, and under tight deadlines is often skipped honestly, It can make or break a heading ... not so much the smaller type.
If you're using Illustrator as part of a Creative Cloud account, consider using InDesign rather than Illustrator. InDesign has tools specifically for kerning and moving your work between programs is just like moving between Illustrator and Photoshop.
I hope this helps a little atleast!
SKEUE
