The graphic designers at RCKT. regularly freak out whenever others commit the greatest of crimes: bad fonts, careless mistakes and and kerning. To help all the “graphic dyslexics”, Tomas has kindly put together five simple dos and don’ts to help you get it right and give all those graphic designers out there a well-deserved break.
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Kerning refers to the spacing between characters in a word. When done incorrectly, it can result in sometimes embarrassing mistakes or in this case, just plain horrible legibility.
GET SOMEONE TO CHECK YOUR WORK! The last thing you want is an embarrassing typo or mistake appearing after the files have been sent to the client! Take the Brandenburger Tor stickers on the windows of the Berlin U-Bahn (Subway) trains, for example. If someone had double checked the design, maybe we wouldn’t have to look down at our feet every time we get on the train.
Plagiarism always gets spotted eventually, as happened with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games logo. Someone spotted the similarity between that and another logo. The result is embarrassment across the table – and not just for the designer. To make matters worse, people have started digging around his former work and noticed even more cases of plagiarism. Way to end your career as a graphic designer. Dabei sein isn’t alles after all.
We get it, you hate Comic Sans. We’ve heard it a million times. But that’s not fair, because some very talented person put lots of time/effort into making this. Everything has a purpose, even Comic Sans! Please don’t go using Helvetica to design your 5 year old’s birthday invitations. Put Comic Sans to good use and go wild. Little kids should be worrying about bath time, not typefaces. But please, refrain from using Comic Sans anywhere else.
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About #rcktwisdom
In the weekly blog format YOUR WEEKLY DOSE OF RCKT. WISDOM, people at RCKT. share their expertise and personal on-the-job experiences. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but always helpful. Every Wednesday, we share our learnings in the form of a listicle.