Logo design, start to finish

Member lesson

Drawing and spacing a wordmark

Lesson 5 of 12 in Logo design, start to finish.

Checked against the makers' documentation on 9 October 2026.

Kerning VS Tracking in Adobe Illustrator: 5 Minute Crash Course · Design Smith
Lesson

Most marks that last are partly or wholly a name. The Typography module explains what makes a logotype different from typed text, and the founders module shows a homemade one made in an evening. This lesson is the order a designer works in. First, decide how far to go. You can set the name as typed and space it by hand, you can adjust an existing face by redrawing one letter or joining two, or you can draw every letter yourself. Each step up costs more days and gives you more of the result to own.

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  1. Question 1, locked

    What problem did Paul Rand point out with setting NEXT in capitals?

    • It was too wide for the cube
    • Capitals could not be kerned
    • It could be confused with EXIT, because the EXT grouping is so dominant
    • It looked too similar to IBM
  2. Question 2, locked

    In what order does the lesson set a wordmark's spacing?

    • Tracking for the whole word first, then single kern pairs
    • Single kern pairs first, then tracking for the whole word
    • Outline the letters first, then space them
    • Kerning and tracking at the same time, in one pass
  3. Question 3, locked

    When does Illustrator's Optical kerning help most?

    • When the font has plenty of built-in kern pairs
    • Only for type set below 10 points
    • When the text has been converted to outlines
    • Where a font has few pairs or the name mixes faces

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