KERN is a cool new game designed for both design and typography geeks. Its clean and minimal design is immediately appealing to designers. And it’s pretty addictive, once you start playing! KERN gives letter spacing a fun twist by turning it into a great iPhone/iPod Touch game. You score points when you position the missing letter in a word into its correct position, height and size. As play progresses, some of the font sizes get smaller, but don’t worry! You’ll score more points by getting those right. Don’t go overboard with the kerning or you’ll risk losing one of five ligatures. Once all five are gone, the game’s over. Boing Boing Offworld nailed it on the head by calling it the “iPhone’s first design-nerd game.”

KERN is the brain-child of Jason Franzen, founder and owner of FORMation, and Adrian Johnson, program designer. Franzen sees iPhone apps as a new medium for design expression. “Designing a game is a natural extension of the graphic design process we use day to day, with the added elements of play and interaction.” These two are also behind EYE vs. EYE, a colour-matching game that’s also worth checking out. Better still, each game will only set you back a buck at the Apple App store.

Watch for a new project by FORMation currently in the works. It’s sure to create another buzz with the design crowd!

1. GDC/BC Blog » Blog Archive » PRESS CHECK Says:
   May 12th, 2009 at 5:42 pm

   [...] CHECK is designed by Jason Franzen, who created EYE vs. EYE (a colour-matching game) and KERN (an addictive letter-spacing game). FORMation is a design studio based in Dallas, [...]

2. Miles Harrison Says:
   May 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm

   An even better iPhone app is
   “What the Font”.
   You photograph the font in question within the app using the iPhone camera and it sends it out and after a brief identification phase, it will spit back the closest matches. Kinda like Shazam for fonts.

3. Ariane Colenbrander Says:
   May 28th, 2009 at 11:15 am

   Hey Miles,

   I’ll have a look at that one - thanks for the mention!

   Cheers,

   Ariane

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