Interface typography is judged at 14 pixels on a phone in sunlight. Everything else is theory.
We start every product project by setting the text styles before a single screen is drawn. Six sizes, two weights, one measure — and a rule that nothing new is added without retiring something else.
The scale we use
Line-height matters more than size. Tracking matters more than people think at small sizes and less than they think at large ones.
- Display: 1.05 line-height, negative tracking.
- Headings: 1.15–1.25.
- Body: 1.5–1.6 at 16–18px.
- Labels: uppercase, 12px, tracked 8–10%.
Good typography is invisible until it isn’t.
Studio note
In practice
We keep a running document of these decisions for every client, so the next designer — in-house or external — inherits reasons, not just files.
