Before anyone reads a word, the typography has already set a tone: careful or careless, modern or traditional, confident or trying too hard. Getting it right is less about picking a "nice font" and more about a small set of consistent decisions.
One or two typefaces, used with intent
Most strong brand systems use one typeface family, or two with a clear division of labour — one for headings, one for body. More than that and the system starts to feel arbitrary. A single well-chosen family with a range of weights is usually enough.
A type scale, not random sizes
Define a fixed set of sizes — say five or six steps from small print to large headline — and use only those. Arbitrary sizes chosen per page are one of the clearest signs of a design that was not systematised.
Readability first for body text
- Comfortable size — around 16 to 20 pixels for body text on the web.
- Line length of roughly 60 to 80 characters. Full-width paragraphs on a wide screen are hard to read.
- Line height around 1.5 to 1.7 for body copy.
- Enough contrast against the background — grey-on-grey is a common mistake.
Headings can have personality; body should not
It is fine for display type to be distinctive. Body text should get out of the way. A characterful font used for long paragraphs slows reading and tires the reader.
Performance matters here too
Every font weight and style is a file to download. Load only the weights you use, host them efficiently, and use font-display: swap so text is visible immediately. A beautiful font that blocks rendering for two seconds is a net loss.
In short
Few typefaces, a fixed scale, readable body text, and personality kept to the headings. It is part of every brand and design system we build. Tell us how your brand should feel and type is one of the first decisions we make.