To kern or not to kern

I never quite knew the significance of kerning and how much it was actually able to communicate but also not really knowing the definition itself. I was able to understand the meaning and the importance of its use with a practical work activity,

(Below) these instances were times which was a bit more challenging than before as we had time to discuss whereas now we only had about thirty seconds.

Selection of letter we were given

The word boat came from a random choice of letters of two vowels and two consonants, one being capital, surprisingly able to be used universally  with it being quite a specific item it could posed a challenge but we managed to make it work which is possibly could be quite relevant if we were ever asked to brand 

          

for a luxury car company,lots of spacing
 better shows lettering

                      

                            Condom company (closely put together to simulate intimacy, the letters are all at different angles which)

Student club, not much space kept, ordered neatly show order or information,
also a bit different from normal formation to possibly show a bit of a unique twist rather
than being side by side

this was done to portray a pest control company, showing the letters with
quite  a lot of space and the gradual levitation showing something being eradicated.

Something I found really interesting to watch was a documentary called "Gentlemen of letters" which went into detail about the history of Dublin's signs, one thing that sticks to mind was someone in the documentary calling it a "snapshot of time" since a lot of the lettering still remains today; discussing the visual importance of the practice and its effect on the people of Dublin.

Having a glimpse into this practice was interesting as I'd previously never seen it in action or understood its importance before, something that was obvious is that there is a lot of precision within this work, when it came to talking about kerning it seemed like it was a big part of what made a sign successful and what didn't. Not being able to get rid of these letters so easily shows how much value they bring to a place and the work and planning that goes into them, this goes along with kerning as this is something that is heavily analysed when working by just your own eye.

In a world that is very digital it was really refreshing to see something thats so different from that. Coming I thought about the way everyone spoke so passionately about what they did and took pride in their work and took into account he others before them. I'm really interested in learning more about this art and will certainty look out for information about it in the future.