OpticalLetterSpacing.js

jQuery Plugin: Tries to add spacing between characters using positive/negative space.

An explanation of how this project came together: http://gaboosh.com/dmi/type1/final_delivery/index.html

Disclaimer

A few important points here:

• The algorithm used in this code is experimental and not perfect by any means. See link above for an explanation of how this came together.
• This is my first jQuery plugin.
• This is my first jQuery experiment that I am placing on GitHub, which means there may be code in there that doesn't make sense as a plugin or an abstracted "class."
• Please feel free to tear apart this code or leave me comments with recommendations.

Usage

The code uses a predetermined number of pixels on each side of each character to measure positive/negative space. Experiment with different values. In this example, it is 30px:

$( "#page_header" ).opticalSpace(30);

Note: since optical letterspacing on lowercase is usually a bad idea, you'll want to stick to uppercase text only here.