Typophile

"ng" a Problem Kerning Pair for Palatino SC?

jd6713

Long-time lurker, first-time poster (and amateur/aspiring typesetter/typographer) ...

I am helping someone set up a book that he has set in MS Word to be converted to a PDF for on-demand, short-run printing.

I know.

Anyway, the first part of the title of the book is "Questioning Circumcision." The author had set it in Book Antiqua fake small caps. Since it is going into a PDF file, I am at least recreating the cover material in Illustrator and am setting the title in Palatino Small Caps. But, to my eye, the "G" at the end of the word "QUESTIONING" seems like it is moving away from the rest of the word. I opened up the font in FOG and there is no kerning pair for "NG" (or "ng" since it is small caps).

Is this really a sidebearing problem (if it really is a problem)? It's just that in this particular instance, the "G" seems to be floating away from the rest of the text, whereas, for example, in the word "HONG" the spacing seems fine.

AttachmentSize
questioning.gif2.26 KB
Dan Reynolds

Since you are using Illustrator, why not just manually reduce the space between the "n" and the "g"?

__
www.typeoff.de

jd6713

My question isn't so much one of technique but rather style. (And embedded in the question is a bit of trepidation at making a judgment about a problem kerning pair and actually changing a default setting!)

I'll also embed an image of what I see in Illustrator.

jd6713

http://www.grokyourworld.com/questioning.gif

Dan Reynolds

Yeah, I see what you mean. That "nin" is so tight… not because of the sidebearings, but just the nature of the combination.
__
www.typeoff.de

William Berkson

>actually changing a default setting!

Generally, unless it is a cap-only display font, I believe you have to 'custom' kern caps for display. This is because what looks good isn't linear with increasing size, and also caps have to be designed to fit the lower case, etc.

So I would say, just do it. You can check your eye by posting it here and getting feedback.

Captured from web.archive.org on 25 Jul 2014. view this capture