April 5, 2011 – Mistyhilltops

Behind the Scenes: What About Tracking & Kerning?

Published by Sula H.

Have you ever heard about tracking and kerning? If not, today you will, for it is “Time for Type!” Yes, you got it right: today, we are talking about fonts again. Fonts and journaling. If you know anything about typography (or graphic design for that matter), you might have heard about tracking and kerning already. For those of you who are clueless, however, let me explain … Tracking – according to one of the many photoshop tutorials – is “the process of loosening or tightening the spacing between characters” in a text. Kerning is “the process of adding or subtracting space between specific pairs of characters.” If you go “Ah???” now, hold on! I’m still not done explaining. Tracking Basically, when we talk about tracking, it means to add or take away space between the characters of your text. It applies to the whole text and can make your text look wider or more dense. Condensed text will appear heavy, while loosened text will appear lighter. Kerning Kerning, on the other hand, deals with …

Tomb Sweeping Day (Qingming Jie)

Published by Sula H.

The Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival, which can be traced as far back as more than 2,500 years. On this day, people visit the graves of their ancestors to honor and worship them, to pray before them, to sweep their tombs, and to offer them food, drinks, and other gifts that could be useful in their afterlife. Some people even draw pictures of TVs, cars, houses, in hopes that the deceased would have a more comfortable “life” wherever they are. Money, real or paper, also often is burned at the tomb, as a sacrifice in honor of the ancestors. It is believed that worshiping their ancestors on Tomb Sweeping Day will ensure good luck throughout the year, while not honoring those who have already passed away, can have very unfortunate results. After its re-institution in 2008, the Qingming Festival has become a widespread custom again, and many people of the older generations expect the younger people to follow their example in observing this holiday. Other names for Tomb Sweeping Day are: – …