New direction / Brand identity
Prioritizes sustained reading, hierarchy, and comfortable text texture.
One manuscript can require three different typography decisions.
Art-direct a durable reading system, then proof it at the final trim size on paper.
Chapter three
At the edge of town, the road narrowed into a ribbon of pale dust. Clara followed it past the empty orchard, carrying the letter she had promised herself she would never open.
A warm, confident, sexy voice with a literate, unexpected appearance.
Why it fits
Soft serifs and open counters give long-form stories authority while keeping the page inviting. Its italic adds a human, spoken quality for pull quotes.
Character signal
Suggested partner
Navigation, captions, recipes
Watch for
The lightest weights lose texture below 16 px. Use the text cut or increase weight for recipes and captions.
Font library / License-aware
System-safe stacks stay on the device. Open-source families load only when they enter the visible preview.
About the collection ↗Curated shortlist / Script Voice
Made for the moment.
Script Fit Test / Heuristic
Made for the moment. · Aa 0123 &!?
Context lab / Project proof
Decision mode / Three complete systems
Thoughtful independent magazine about food, place, and makers. Intelligent, warm, and slightly unexpected.
Stories from the tables, landscapes, and people that shape how we eat.
Expressive · Warm · Structured
StrengthMemorable editorial personality with disciplined utility.
RiskThe Voice can become theatrical when overused.
Stories from the tables, landscapes, and people that shape how we eat.
Literary · Calm · Assured
StrengthExceptional long-form reading with broad editorial range.
RiskLess ownable in high-impact brand moments.
Stories from the tables, landscapes, and people that shape how we eat.
Direct · Curious · Contemporary
StrengthFeels immediate, youthful, and digitally confident.
RiskThe headline voice can resemble technology branding.
Chosen direction
Fraunces / DM Sans / IBM Plex Mono
Developer handoff / CSS
Font locker / Persistent project memory
Favorites keep the source and license attached. Directions retain the reasoning behind a complete system.
01 / Favorite families
Tap the heart on any Library card to keep the family here.
02 / Saved evidence
Specimen, rationale, pairing, and production caution stay together.
The shelf is empty
Save a direction to keep its rationale, pairing, and specimen together.
Project studio / Typography doctor
Choose a path
02 / Website audit
Audits up to five ordinary same-origin pages in a fresh browser session and inventories up to 5,000 rendered text elements per page. Private networks, signed-in pages, mutation-like routes, canvas text, and cross-origin iframe contents are not accessed.
Waiting for rendered evidence
Type Scout will place representative copy from the audited page into this before-and-after proof.
1 2 3Copy originality / Pattern review
This reviews rendered writing patterns—it does not identify authorship.
Clarity / Reading stress test
Approximate English-language measures, supported by exact evidence.
Audit record / Handoff
Saved records retain computed findings and page samples, not captured screenshots. Font presence remains evidence of use—not proof of licensing rights.
03 / Color companion
04 / Variable font playground
Safe display range · Strong at 48–96 px · Check counters below 18 px.
05 / Emphasis & hierarchy
Loading the verified weight and style range…
RegularA detail worth noticing.
ItalicA detail worth noticing.
StrongA detail worth noticing.
Use emphasis to create meaning—not decoration. Never rely on weight or italic alone to communicate essential information.
Emphasis budget / Real copy
Hierarchy map / Current project
Scale and spacing establish order before bold or italic enters the system.
06 / Evidence & handoff
Language proof / Catalog evidence
0123456789 · $ € £ ¥ ₹ ₩ · ½ ¼ ¾ · @ # % & * + − = → · “ ” ‘ ’ … —
Subset metadata is evidence, not a guarantee. A visible character can come from a fallback font.
Failure state / Layout resilience
Width difference is a layout-risk heuristic, not a Core Web Vitals measurement. Confirm real line wrapping after production font files, weights, and loading behavior are configured.
Web delivery / Focused variants
No packages requiredAccessibility proof / Real content
This lab supports review; it cannot certify WCAG conformance. WCAG does not prescribe a universal minimum font size, and ambiguous-letter clarity still requires human judgment.
Evidence snapshots / Project history
A checkpoint retains the font system and the exact specimen, emphasis, language, fallback, and legibility copy used to judge it.
Production kit / ZIP handoff
Package implementation tokens and evidence without redistributing font files.
Document audit / Private by design
Diagnose hierarchy, font sprawl, sizing, and emphasis in Word documents and text-based PDFs.
DOCX Reads styles, direct formatting, fonts, sizes, bold, and italic.
PDF Reads the final positioned text and embedded font names.
SCAN Image-only PDF pages can use an optional local OCR pass.
Upload a document to map its visual vocabulary and identify the changes that will make it more coherent.
Audit complete
Typography inventory ready.
03 / Originality check
Pattern review only—never an authorship verdict.
04 / Clarity check
Approximate English-language measures, supported by exact evidence.
OCR rescue / Image-only pages
OCR runs locally for up to ten scanned pages. It can recover text and approximate scale, but it cannot identify a typeface, true weight, italic, or licensing status.
OCR language data downloads only when you start this optional pass.
05 / Prescription
Recommendations connect the evidence to the project’s Voice, Narrator, and Guide roles.
06 / Repair plan
Evidence confidence
Copy-ready handoff
A practical starting system for Word, layout software, or a design-system handoff.
Type Scout field manual / 21 steps
A visual walkthrough from the right project path to a licensed, tested, exportable typography system.
Chapter 01 / Choose the path
Projects is the starting dashboard. Search by project name, memory, or brief, then sort the working set by recent activity or name. Record audience and constraints in Project Memory; brief, memory, and decision-note edits autosave locally. Export one project or the complete workspace as portable JSON; workspace imports identify exact matches, add only distinct projects, or safely replace the browser copy. Sign in to keep a server copy: Local changes means this browser is newer, Server changes means the account copy is newer, and Server current confirms both match. Before a replacement, compare both copies; the previous browser workspace remains available through Undo last workspace replacement.
Select Create a type system for a new direction, or Audit a website when existing typography needs to be diagnosed first.
For an audit, enter the URL, choose a one-, three-, or five-page scope, review overall consistency, then inspect each page. Export JSON or Markdown, or sign in to save and selectively publish the evidence.
Chapter 02 / Discover
Describe what the typography should make people feel, then select the environment where it must perform.
Choose up to three emotional traits and three visual traits. Use the live sentence to check whether the direction still sounds coherent.
Replace the display specimen with real project copy and tune its size. The specimen stays with the active project, so each direction can be judged against the words it must actually carry. Read Why it fits and Watch for, then save only the distinct Voice strategies worth building into complete systems.
Chapter 03 / Build the system
Search or filter the library, enter real preview text, and move through numbered pages. Choose Script & handwriting to compare the curated Parisienne, Caveat, and Yellowtail systems. Use Script Fit Test to check size, capitalization, a 320 px layout, reverse contrast, and license evidence before applying a system.
Set a Voice for expression, a Narrator for sustained reading, and a Guide for navigation, labels, data, and utility text. A Script Voice preset applies all three roles together while keeping script out of body and interface text.
Adjust display, body, utility, and reading measure. Review pairing fit, production risk, and licensing before accepting the system.
Chapter 04 / Prove it works
The selected use case opens the closest working context. Inspect Editorial, Magazine, Newspaper, E-commerce, SaaS dashboard, Case study, Landing Page, Mobile, and Packaging as the project requires.
Test dark backgrounds, narrow widths, all caps, small text, and dense content. Fix role or scale problems rather than hiding them.
Open Compare & Decide only after the roles and stress tests are ready. Choose the strongest complete system and record its tradeoff.
Chapter 05 / Documents, voice & emphasis
Open Document Audit and choose a DOCX or text-based PDF. The file stays in the browser while Type Scout maps families, sizes, hierarchy, bold, and italic usage.
Review the page or document excerpt, font inventory, emphasis percentage, and severity-labeled findings. For image-only PDF pages, run the optional local OCR pass and treat recovered text as lower-confidence evidence.
Review interchangeable phrases, the exact passages where they appear, why they weaken specificity, and concrete alternative directions. Treat it as a pattern review—not proof of AI authorship.
Use sentence length, approximate reading grade, passive construction, dense paragraph, repeated-opening, and abstract-language evidence to find unnecessary reading effort. Copy the result as an editing brief.
Use the current → recommended map for display, heading, body, labels, and emphasis. Copy or download the exact style specification for Word, layout software, or a design-system handoff.
In Projects, test a real emphasis phrase and marked-up paragraph, then replace the language, fallback, and legibility samples with project content. These fields autosave with the active project and travel through project JSON, complete-workspace export, and account sync. Confirm genuine weights and italics for Voice, Narrator, and Guide before handoff.
Measure typography, sentence rhythm, density, and approximate reading grade.
Find interchangeable writing and replace it with specific evidence.
Translate evidence into role, family, size, weight, and style changes.
Chapter 06 / Decide & hand off
Refine the palette and useful variable-font range, then review consistency, readability, performance, licensing, fallback behavior, and the focused Fontsource loading plan.
Confirm all three roles, sources, licenses, emphasis rules, language subsets, fallback behavior, contrast targets, and every Legibility Lab mode. Record current proof to preserve both the design configuration and its exact test copy. Compare shows every changed role, color, scale, fallback, language profile, or sample. Restore first creates a safety checkpoint, then returns the selected configuration and copy while clearing live proof status for honest retesting.
Rename, duplicate, or export the active project directly in Project Manager. Import a project JSON to restore it—with its decision note and validated proof history—as a separate local project. Export CSS tokens, HTML or PNG boards, or a printable review from Handoff; use Locker for useful families; and save an explicit server copy when the browser workspace should follow you.
