These guides cover the decisions that actually shape how text reads — spacing, weight, typeface pairing, hierarchy, and contrast. Each one is written for people who want to understand the reasoning behind a choice, not just copy a rule.
Where most type decisions go wrong
Typography problems rarely come from choosing a bad typeface. They come from ignoring the relationship between size, weight, spacing, and context. A perfectly good font becomes unreadable at 11px on a mobile screen with tight line-height — and most designers only catch that in production. These guides exist to flag those issues before they reach the page.
The most persistent mistakes involve line length and leading. When a paragraph runs 90 characters wide with 1.2 line-height, reading slows down noticeably. Readers won't be able to name the problem, but they'll stop halfway through. Getting those two values right before touching typefaces saves enormous revision time later.
Guides by topic area
Each guide focuses on one specific aspect of type — narrow enough to be useful in a real project session, detailed enough to answer follow-up questions without needing a second resource.
Hierarchy & Structure
Reading order — how type guides the eye
Visual hierarchy in typography is not about making headings large and bold by default. It is about controlling the sequence in which information reaches the reader. When every element competes for attention, none of it lands. This guide walks through how size, weight, colour, and whitespace each contribute differently to directing attention — and where designers commonly over-rely on one while neglecting the others.
1
Assign heading levels before choosing any typeface
Line length and line-height interact. Changing one without adjusting the other shifts the reading experience more than most typographic tweaks. This guide gives concrete numbers for common screen contexts — editorial, UI, and marketing — and explains why the same values behave differently on print versus screen.
Most pairing failures happen when both typefaces share the same structural character — both geometric, both humanist. Contrast in construction, not just in style, is what makes a pair feel intentional. This guide covers what to look for before committing to a combination.
Legibility is whether individual characters can be identified — an a distinguished from an o, a 1 from an l. Readability is whether text can be processed comfortably over extended time. A typeface can score high on legibility and still exhaust the reader after two paragraphs because of poor spacing, low contrast against its background, or a line length that forces too many eye-return movements per minute. Understanding the difference changes which problems you focus on first.
Screen versus print: the variables that change
Type on screen is rendered by pixels, which means small sizes and fine strokes often soften or break. Print resolves at much higher density, so thin serifs and tight tracking that fail on screen can look precise on paper. Guides written for web typography should not be applied wholesale to print projects — and vice versa. Several of the guides here address this split explicitly, with context-specific recommendations rather than one-size advice.
A practical sequence for applying these guides
01
Classify before choosing
Read the type classification guide first. Knowing where a typeface sits structurally stops you from selecting by aesthetics and then wondering why it fails in context.
Start here
02
Set spacing first
Before finalising any typeface, set your preferred line-height and measure values. Spacing decisions constrain which typefaces actually work — it is easier to choose a face within constraints than adjust spacing around a choice.
03
Build hierarchy with one typeface
Use the hierarchy guide while working with a single typeface and varying only weight and size. Adding a second typeface before hierarchy is resolved usually creates confusion, not variety.
04
Introduce a second face if needed
Only bring in the pairing guide once you have a working single-typeface system. If the hierarchy reads clearly with one face, a second is optional — not a requirement.
