Typography Expert
Working type director's reference for selecting, pairing, and shipping typefaces with real taste. Covers a broad, opinionated catalog of typefaces and foundries (libre through commercial), a mood/era/register-driven selection framework that never collapses to one answer, font pairing as logic, fluid type scales, variable-font axes (incl. opsz/GRAD), OpenType features, web-font performance (subsetting, font-display, size-adjust fallback metrics), and licensing literacy (SIL OFL vs commercial EULA, desktop/web/app, trials). Explicitly retires the overused AI-design defaults (Inter, Roboto, Montserrat, Poppins, Fraunces, Geist, Söhne, the Fontshare/ITF starter pack) and names fresher alternatives in every role. Use for font selection, pairing, type scales, web-font optimization, variable fonts, OpenType, and typographic systems. NOT for logo/wordmark design, icon fonts, general CSS, or image-based/raster typography.
- Skill ID
- curiositech/some_claude_skills/typography-expert
- Publisher
- curiositech
- Repository
- some_claude_skills
- Installs
- 0
- Files
- 3
- Synced
- Sep 23, 2026
Open any RiverX project, open the Skills panel in the chat, and search for this identifier. The files are fetched from the source repository at install time.
curiositech/some_claude_skills/typography-expertInstalls these files- .claude-plugin/plugin.json
- CHANGELOG.md
- SKILL.md
What this skill tells the agent
Typography Expert
Written by someone who picks type for a living. The goal of this skill is breadth and taste, not a blessed shortlist. There is never one right typeface — there is a right register, and several good faces that hit it at different budgets. If you reach for the same four fonts every time, you are not choosing; you are defaulting. Stop defaulting.
When to Use This Skill
✅ Use for:
- Font selection and pairing driven by mood / era / industry / register, not by habit
- Typographic hierarchy and tokens for design systems
- Type scales (modular ratios, fluid
clamp()) - Variable-font integration and axis control (
wght,wdth,opsz,slnt,GRAD) - Web-font performance (subsetting,
font-display, self-host vs CDN,size-adjustfallback metrics to kill CLS) - OpenType feature implementation (ligatures, small caps, numerals, stylistic sets)
- Licensing decisions (OFL vs commercial EULA; desktop/web/app; trial fonts)
- Accessibility for type (WCAG contrast, minimum sizes, zoom, line/letter spacing)
- Dark-mode typographic compensation
- Multilingual support (RTL, CJK, diacritics, character-set coverage)
❌ Do NOT use for:
- Logo or wordmark creation → design-system-creator
- Icon fonts / icon systems → web-design-expert (use SVG, not icon fonts)
- General CSS unrelated to type
- Image-based or rasterized lettering → different domain
- Brand naming or strategy → this is visual implementation
- Kinetic/motion typography → native-app-designer
0. Retire the Defaults (read this first)
These faces are not bad. They are exhausted — reached for reflexively, so they signal "a machine or a hurried human picked this," not "someone chose this." If a brief has no reason to use one of these, don't. For each: one sentence on why it's a cliché, then two fresher faces that fill the same role.
| Overused face | Why it reads as a cliché | Reach for instead |
|---|---|---|
| Inter (Rasmus Andersson, OFL) | The default UI sans of the entire 2018–2025 web; competent and invisible to the point of anonymity. | Hanken Grotesk (Alfredo Marco Pradil, OFL — warmer humanist UI sans) · Public Sans (USWDS, OFL — neutral but distinct) · paid: *Söhne is also now overused; try Untitled Sans* (Klim) instead. |
| Roboto (Christian Robertson, Apache) | Android's system font; "I used whatever was already loaded." | Schibsted Grotesk (Bakken & Bæck, OFL) · Onest (OFL) |
| Open Sans (Steve Matteson, Apache) | The 2013 "safe corporate" sans; reads as a CMS template. | Source Sans 3 (Paul Hunt / Adobe, OFL) · IBM Plex Sans (Bold Monday for IBM, OFL) |
| Montserrat (Julieta Ulanovsky, OFL) | Geometric "startup deck" sans, over-set at heavy weights everywhere. | Hanken Grotesk · paid: Aktiv Grotesk (Dalton Maag) or GT America (Grilli Type) |
| Poppins (Indian Type Foundry, OFL) | The "friendly app" geometric circle-o sans of a thousand landing pages. | Gabarito (OFL, geometric with character) · Figtree (OFL) · paid: Visby (Connary Fagen) |
| Lato (Łukasz Dziedzic, OFL) | 2010s humanist default; pleasant, forgettable. | Instrument Sans (Rodrigo Fuenzalida + Jordan Egstad, OFL) · Mona Sans (GitHub, OFL) |
| Helvetica / Helvetica Neue (Linotype) | "Neutral" became a cliché the moment everyone agreed it was neutral; also a paid license many fake with Arial. | Neue Haas Grotesk (the real thing, Linotype/Monotype) if you must; or pivot to a grotesque with grit: GT America (Grilli Type), ABC Diatype (Dinamo). Libre swap: Archivo (Omnibus-Type, OFL). |
| Fraunces (Undercase Type, OFL) | The "soft serif with the wonky g and opsz axis" that became the indie-SaaS display serif. | Newsreader (Production Type, OFL — has opsz too, far less seen) · paid: Signifier (Klim) or Domaine (Klim) for high-contrast display. |
| Geist (Vercel, OFL) | Ships with every Next.js starter; "I scaffolded this an hour ago." | Sans: Mona Sans / Hubot Sans (GitHub, OFL) or Hanken Grotesk. Mono: Commit Mono (OFL) or Martian Mono (OFL). |
| Söhne (Klim) | The premium-newsletter / AI-company house sans of 2021–present (you've seen it on a dozen "we raised a Series A" pages). | Other Klim grotesques: Untitled Sans or National 2; or off-Klim: ABC Diatype (Dinamo), Aeonik (CoType). |
| Fontshare / ITF "starter pack" — Satoshi, General Sans, Clash Display, Cabinet Grotesk, Switzer, Space Grotesk (Indian Type Foundry, free) | Free + slick + on every dribbble shot since 2021; "Clash Display + Satoshi body" is now a look, not a choice. | Clash Display → Bricolage Grotesque (Mathieu Triay, OFL) or Anybody/Big Shoulders (OFL) for display · Satoshi/General Sans → Hanken Grotesk, Schibsted Grotesk, Instrument Sans · Space Grotesk → Departure Mono / Space Mono is fine but tired; try Spline Sans or Familjen Grotesk (OFL). |
The meta-rule: if the only justification for a face is "it's clean and modern," you have not made a decision. Clean and modern is the floor, not the brief.
1. Pick the Register Before the Font
Never name a typeface before you can name the register: the mood, era, industry, medium, and voice. The same word ("modern") points at five different faces depending on register. Work the framework below, then choose — and offer options at three budget tiers so money is never the excuse for a boring result.
Budget tiers used throughout: Libre = free, OFL/Apache, self-hostable. PWYW/Trial = pay-what-you-want or generous free-for-personal trial (commercial use paid). Commercial = licensed foundry retail.
Warm editorial (magazines, long-form, "human and considered")
- Libre: Newsreader (Production Type) for text + display; Source Serif 4 (Adobe) for body; Spectral (Production Type) for screen-first reading.
- PWYW/Trial: Editorial New (Pangram Pangram) for narrow editorial headlines; Reckless (Displaay, trial).
- Commercial: Tiempos Text/Headline (Klim); GT Sectra (Grilli Type) for that scalpel-and-broad-nib warmth; Lyon (Commercial Type).
Industrial / technical / engineering
- Libre: IBM Plex (Sans/Mono/Serif, Bold Monday) — the most credible libre technical superfamily; Space Mono only if you want the retro-NASA wink.
- PWYW/Trial: Basier (atipo, PWYW) for a tidy grotesque; Chaney (atipo) for a stencil-tech display edge.
- Commercial: GT America (Grilli Type); ABC Monument Grotesk or ABC Diatype Mono (Dinamo); Akkurat (Lineto, Laurenz Brunner) — the original Swiss-spec workhorse.
Luxury / fashion / beauty
- Libre: Cormorant (Christian Thalmann, OFL) — a Garamond-adjacent display with extreme delicacy; Libre Caslon Display (OFL) for high-contrast titling.
- PWYW/Trial: Migra (Pangram Pangram) — sculptural sharp serif; Tobias / Reckless (Displaay, trial).
- Commercial: Domaine Display (Klim); Canela (Commercial Type); Genath (Optimo, François Rappo) — a serious didone-adjacent revival with bite.
Civic / institutional / public-sector
- Libre: Public Sans (USWDS) — literally built for government; Source Sans 3; Libre Franklin (OFL) as a Franklin Gothic stand-in.
- PWYW/Trial: Wotfard (atipo, PWYW) — quiet, legible, institutional.
- Commercial: National 2 (Klim); FF Meta or Stratos for signage-grade legibility.
Literary / bookish
- Libre: EB Garamond (OFL) — a faithful Garamond; Cardo (OFL) for scholarly long-form; Newsreader for screen.
- PWYW/Trial: Editorial New for the literary-cover register.
- Commercial: Tiempos (Klim); Arnhem (OurType, Fred Smeijers); Lyon Text (Commercial Type).
Brutalist / raw / counterculture
- Libre: Velvetyne's catalog is the motherlode — Fivo Sans, Pilowlava, Basteleur, Le Murmure (libre, made for exactly this); Redaction (Titus Kaphar & Forest Young, OFL) for a degraded-newspaper feel.
More from curiositech
Use this skill in a project
Open any RiverX project, search the Skills panel for curiositech/some_claude_skills/typography-expert, and install it in one click.