Typography
The choice and arrangement of fonts: which typefaces, what sizes, how bold, and how tightly spaced.
What it is
Typography covers everything about how text looks: the font family, sizes, weights, line height, and letter spacing. It does more to set an app's personality than almost anything else.
A type scale is a fixed set of sizes (say 13, 16, 22, 32, 48) used consistently, so headings and body text always relate in the same way. Using random sizes everywhere is a fast route to a messy screen.
When asking for typography, name a font (or a feel, like "geometric sans-serif"), the sizes for headings and body, and the weights.
How to ask for it
“The text looks boring. Make the fonts nicer.”
“Update the typography: use Inter for everything, 16px body text at 1.6 line height, headings at 22/32/48px in semibold with slightly tight letter spacing, and secondary text at 13px in grey.”
"Nicer fonts" is taste; typography with a named font, a size scale, and weights is a spec.
You've seen this in
- TThe New York Times' serif headlines
- SStripe's clean sans-serif UI
- AApple's San Francisco font across iOS