Kerning on Mac for Text Tattoo?
September 21, 2013 7:49 AM Subscribe
I've finally decided on a tattoo. Yey! I'm trying to put together a mockup on my Mac, but Pages doesn't allow me to any kerning. This makes the text look weirdly spaced. Any suggestions for software on a mac that will allow me to kern? Freely, if possible?
The tattoo is:
be
there
in Big Caslon in black, except the t is red, so that it can also be read as 'be here'. The problem is the spacing between the 'h' and the 'e' in 'there'. It's too big!
The tattoo is:
be
there
in Big Caslon in black, except the t is red, so that it can also be read as 'be here'. The problem is the spacing between the 'h' and the 'e' in 'there'. It's too big!
Tangentially related: a tip I've found useful when you can't afford bad kerning is to rotate the word 180°, so that your brain just sees black and white shapes, rather than recognisable characters.
posted by puffmoike at 8:03 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by puffmoike at 8:03 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Use a "Page Layout" template instead of a "Word Processing" template in Pages. Put the letters you need to kern into separate text boxes. Move the boxes around to your heart's content.
posted by bcwinters at 8:05 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by bcwinters at 8:05 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oh wait, actually I forgot that you can adjust the tracking in Pages.
Select the character that has too much space to its right. Then look under Format > Font > Tracking for the Tighten command.
There aren't any preset keyboard shortcuts for Tighten/Loosen (which is dumb since they only move the text by like a point at a time!) but you can add something like "Command-Option-Shift-Left and Right" in System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts.
posted by bcwinters at 8:12 AM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
Select the character that has too much space to its right. Then look under Format > Font > Tracking for the Tighten command.
There aren't any preset keyboard shortcuts for Tighten/Loosen (which is dumb since they only move the text by like a point at a time!) but you can add something like "Command-Option-Shift-Left and Right" in System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts.
posted by bcwinters at 8:12 AM on September 21, 2013 [3 favorites]
Does it have to be digital? If not, I'd print them out, cut them out and do the pasteup manually.
posted by chazlarson at 8:39 AM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by chazlarson at 8:39 AM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]
Pages does allow you to adjust kerning. If it isn't already open, go to View > Show Inspector. In the Inspector, select Text (it'll look like this). Then select an individual letter—in your case, the "h"—and adjust the percentage for Character (under Spacing). That will allow you to increase or decrease the space after the letter you've selected with some precision.
posted by JackBurden at 8:51 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by JackBurden at 8:51 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
If worst comes to worst you know your tattoo artist will be creating a stencil and in that process can adjust the spacing by hand.
posted by bitdamaged at 9:09 AM on September 21, 2013
posted by bitdamaged at 9:09 AM on September 21, 2013
Photoshop and Microsoft Word both have this capability. You could also just use whatever Mac's version of Microsoft Paint is (free pre-installed editor) and just type it up and then cut and paste at the spacing you want.
posted by AppleTurnover at 9:35 AM on September 21, 2013
posted by AppleTurnover at 9:35 AM on September 21, 2013
Best answer: You should meet with the tattoo artist before you start worrying about this stuff.
Despite the fact that I spent half a day deciding on the perfect font, kerning, spacing, and layout for my text tattoo, ultimately the artist ended up redoing the whole thing herself on Illustrator.
Here's how the process worked from the point that I actually met with the artist:
Brought in what I wanted to consult with the artist. We had a pretty serious conversation about fonts, what she could actually achieve, what would be legible in 10 years, etc. that resulted in her pulling out her laptop, opening Illustrator, and us working together to pick the really perfect font, not the perfect font in an ideal world where biology, chemistry, and physics don't exist.
After we agreed on something, we adjusted the kerning and spacing together and settled on both a layout and basic placement idea.
She then printed the tattoo transfer "stencil" (for lack of a better word) directly from that Illustrator file and applied it to the part of my body we'd settled on. There were some issues with placement, so we ended up redoing it a couple times until it was perfect.
Then, and only then, did she actually start tattooing.
Remember that a tattoo artist is an artist, and that they know a lot more about what will work than you do, because they tattoo people for a living. This is another good reason to go with an artist who has a lot of experience doing text tattoos.
posted by Sara C. at 10:50 AM on September 21, 2013 [12 favorites]
Despite the fact that I spent half a day deciding on the perfect font, kerning, spacing, and layout for my text tattoo, ultimately the artist ended up redoing the whole thing herself on Illustrator.
Here's how the process worked from the point that I actually met with the artist:
Brought in what I wanted to consult with the artist. We had a pretty serious conversation about fonts, what she could actually achieve, what would be legible in 10 years, etc. that resulted in her pulling out her laptop, opening Illustrator, and us working together to pick the really perfect font, not the perfect font in an ideal world where biology, chemistry, and physics don't exist.
After we agreed on something, we adjusted the kerning and spacing together and settled on both a layout and basic placement idea.
She then printed the tattoo transfer "stencil" (for lack of a better word) directly from that Illustrator file and applied it to the part of my body we'd settled on. There were some issues with placement, so we ended up redoing it a couple times until it was perfect.
Then, and only then, did she actually start tattooing.
Remember that a tattoo artist is an artist, and that they know a lot more about what will work than you do, because they tattoo people for a living. This is another good reason to go with an artist who has a lot of experience doing text tattoos.
posted by Sara C. at 10:50 AM on September 21, 2013 [12 favorites]
Seconding Sara C., talk to your artist (and pick an artist with a lot of text in their portfolio).
posted by wrok at 12:26 PM on September 21, 2013
posted by wrok at 12:26 PM on September 21, 2013
Another option: Print out the words, get some tracing paper, and trace them in the spacing you want. No matter what you do your artist will probably clean it up a bit in order to make a good stencil. You can bring your source work and let them know the font too. I agree your artist can help with this.
Word/pages allows you to have text boxes and you can adjust the spacing between them individually.
posted by Crystalinne at 2:14 PM on September 21, 2013
Word/pages allows you to have text boxes and you can adjust the spacing between them individually.
posted by Crystalinne at 2:14 PM on September 21, 2013
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posted by furnace.heart at 7:56 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]