Typography is the voice, not the delivery van

There's a habit in digital design of treating type as plumbing — pick a safe sans, ship it, move on. But typography is the closest thing a silent medium has to a tone of voice. Before a single word is read, the typeface has already set the temperature of the room.

Pair for contrast, not similarity

A good pairing has tension. A characterful display face paired with a clean, almost invisible body face gives you the best of both: personality where it counts, legibility where it's needed. Two faces that are too alike just look like a mistake.

We tend to reach for faces that aren't the platform defaults. Not to be contrarian — defaults are default for good reasons — but because a default face makes a brand feel like it could belong to anyone.

Set a real scale

Pick a type scale and commit to it. Sizes, weights, tracking, leading — all decided up front, all consistent. Improvised type is the single most common tell of an amateur layout.

• Display: tight tracking, heavy weight, used sparingly
• Body: generous leading (around 1.6), comfortable measure of 65–75 characters
• Labels: small, tracked out, doing structural work

The goal isn't to be noticed for its own sake. It's that when someone finishes reading, the page felt like it was speaking in a single, deliberate voice.