Bad Kerning and Signage Awards
Introducing the Bad Kerning & Signage Awa rds. If written language is a cornerstone of civilization, type abuse constitutes a crime against enlightenment. These blemishes on the cultural landscape disappear all too easily in the sea of flashing messages, electronic billboards, and shop windows—but once you start looking for them, you’ll see them everywhere. Weak letter spacing, tacky font choice, stretched and distorted text, and generally poor craftsmanship pollute our public spaces.
It’s time to protest! I’ll be collecting and posting examples of some of the worst transgressions on this page. Feel free to submit any particularly heinous examples you’d like to share.
This one wins a Bad Kerning & Signage Awa rd—plus it deserves special honors for exposed wiring, additional irrelevant signage (“EQUAL”) on the electrical box, and for putting that box on top of an attractive cinder block. I almost overlooked the collision in the word “C enter” between the n and the t and the clogged up blob at the top of the r because the spacing after the capital letters was so distracting. The horizontally stretched type on the sign beneath S klu C enter (“We have the THERMAGE”) is the perfect accent.
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