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could you please check the kerning for this logo? I'm a UI designer not a graphic designer. I have no confidence with kerning/letter spacing but I have to do this nonetheless.
If this is not the best place to ask this question could you please provide a forum which could help me? I find most graphic design forums quite nasty. I like forums that use karma points.
The essence of good kerning is to achieve an even appearance to the letterspacing in a word. It's a visual, not a mathematical operation. There some really hifalutin' rules to this, but they tend to be more academic than practical unless you're experienced with typography and/or a type designer.
Here's a basic rule-of-thumb kerning exercise that will get you 90 percent of the way, 90 percent of the time: squint at the text so it's blurry. Do you see blobs of white or dark lumps? The kerning needs to be evened out.
If you do that with your logo text you'll see that the letters "rea" are spaced farther apart than "alest." If you scooch (technical terminology is rampant in this post. huh?) "ales" to the left so they gain a bit of space between them, things will look much more even.
On the second line, the squint technique will reveal that "ADN" is widely spaced, "E" a bit tight, and the "T" and "O" are floating in comparatively large seas of white. That extra space between "D" and "N," the open tracking of the entire line and the fact that "AD" is in the lighter color combine to make it hard to tell if there's meant to be a space between "AD" and "NETWORK." You always want to avoid ambiguity of that kind. It makes the reader uneasy.
An "O" following a "W" is a common instance where tighter-than-default kerning is required. The "O" looks terribly insecure, and needs to be pulled in under the arm of the "W" so the two letters don't look so disconnected. Again, this will jump out at you if you give it a good squint.
Since you're not that experienced with this, you'll probably find it's an iterative process. You'll probably go too far in one direction or another and have to backtrack.
Above all, don't agonize over it. There's no absolute right or wrong involved. If you can squint at it and each line looks nicely even in texture, you're in good shape.
