OUGD403 -To kern or not to kern

"Letter spacing should not be mechanically equal but must achieve equal optical space" 
Tschischold, J.

Monospace typeface
This is where the kerning is the same between letterforms. An examples of this can be seen on typewriters.

This lecture on has vastly helped with understanding the importance of kerning. I now understand that there are different ways to kern type and that they can be chosen by what you are designing. The lecture taught me the difference between optical, metric and manual kerning and when is best to use each.

Metric
Kern pairs that are adjusted automatically due to being problematic. Such pairs of letters include: LA   P.   To   Tr   Ta   Tu   Te   Ty   Wa   WA   We   Ya   Yo

Optical
Spacing between letters is based on the shapes of the letterforms. Pairs of letters such as VA are affected.

Manual
Kerning is done by eye. You manually adjust the distance between letterforms to where you think it suits best

Kerning can effect the way type is perceived. If letters aren't at an appropriate distance from each other in a logo, the client may not approve of it and may lose the job. This is why we played Kerndown where we were to appropriately space our random letters apart from each other in conjunction with a type of shop such as a hairdressers or smoothie company.