Hierarchy you can see
Readers decide what to read first in under a second, and they do it entirely from contrast: size, weight, family and spacing. When levels sit too close together, every element competes. TYPAL detects levels that are too close, captions competing with body copy, and systems using too many weights or families.
Issue 04 — Typography
The quiet discipline of setting type well
Why measure, rhythm and contrast decide whether a page feels resolved
Most typographic problems are not mistakes of taste. They are small measurable things — a measure that runs too wide, leading borrowed from a different size, a hierarchy whose steps are too close together — and each one costs the reader a fraction of attention. Set them right and the page stops asking for effort.
“Typography exists to honour content.” — Robert Bringhurst
Analyse this layout
Figure 1 — Vertical rhythm across a 8px baseline grid.
632px measure~79 characters per line · recommended 45–75
Heading 22px, subheading 20px, body 16px, caption 15px — four levels compressed into a 7px range, all in one family and near-identical weights. Nothing leads; everything shouts at the same volume.
Issue 04 — Typography
The quiet discipline of setting type well
Why measure, rhythm and contrast decide whether a page feels resolved
Most typographic problems are not mistakes of taste. They are small measurable things — a measure that runs too wide, leading borrowed from a different size, a hierarchy whose steps are too close together — and each one costs the reader a fraction of attention. Set them right and the page stops asking for effort.
“Typography exists to honour content.” — Robert Bringhurst
Analyse this layout
Figure 1 — Vertical rhythm across a 8px baseline grid.
632px measure~79 characters per line · recommended 45–75
A 56px display serif heading, a quiet 16px sans body and a 12px tracked label create three distinct volumes. The order of reading is decided before a word is read.
How TYPAL checks this
- Step size between adjacent levels, against your scale ratio
- Weight and family contrast — size alone rarely carries a level
- Captions and labels that are too large and compete with body copy
- Total count of families and weights, flagged past two of each