In a past life I was a design major so here's a tip for kerning letters. Kern letters in groups of three, then step back and look at whole word, repeat until it looks balanced. Oh, and a bonus tip the number 1 and l (lowercase L) almost always have too much space to the left of the character, I see so many designs with '2011' badly kerned.
I've heard it recommended to flip the piece 180 degrees and look at it that way. I expect great type designers don't do that, but it's given a bit of insight to me a couple of times.
