{"id":621,"date":"2026-01-15T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.goodlayers.com\/infinite\/homepages\/main5\/2026\/01\/15\/type-systems-for-teams-not-designers\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:00:00","slug":"type-systems-for-teams-not-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dgbds.uk\/?p=621","title":{"rendered":"Type systems for teams, not designers"},"content":{"rendered":"

( 01  Journal )<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Type systems for teams, not designers<\/h1><\/div>

Identity<\/p><\/div><\/div>

15 Jan 2026<\/p><\/div><\/div>

7 min read<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
\"Portrait<\/div><\/div>

Ines Duarte
Type Designer<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Concrete<\/div><\/div>

Pl. 01<\/span>  Type card and templates, in use<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Three sizes and two weights will carry a company further than a scale of eleven, because a scale is a set of options and a system is a set of decisions already made.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

A typographic scale with eleven steps is a pleasure to draw and an invitation to guess. Presented with eleven options and no training, people choose by eye, and by eye means slightly bigger than the last one.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

The eleven-step scale is not wrong. It is simply designed for a reader who does not work there.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

What we ship now<\/h3><\/div>

Three sizes and two weights, named for what they do rather than how big they are. Not display, heading one, heading two, subhead — but page title, section title, body and note. Anyone can place those correctly without exercising judgement, which is the entire point.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

The rules that go with them fit on a card:<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

One page title per page, always at the top<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Section titles never follow each other without text between<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Body is the default; if you are choosing, you have already gone wrong<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Notes are for captions and credits, nothing else<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

That is the whole system for ninety per cent of what a company produces.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

A scale is a set of options. A system is a set of decisions already made.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Type notes, January<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Where the designers go<\/h3><\/div>

The full scale still exists and designers still use it. It lives in the design tool rather than in the templates, and it carries a note saying that anything set outside the three sizes needs a reason someone else could repeat.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

That has not been restrictive in practice. Campaign work and editorial pages use the wider range constantly. What changed is that the four hundred everyday documents — decks, ads, job posts, invoices — stopped drifting, because there was nothing to drift within.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Two years in, the drift we measured on the previous system, roughly nine unauthorised sizes a quarter across the marketing team, is down to two, and both of those turned out to be reasonable.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

\"Empty<\/div><\/div>

Pl. 02<\/span>  Type card, second edition<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Fitting it into the tools<\/h3><\/div>

None of it works as a document. The three sizes are the only text styles that exist in the shared templates, and the eleven-step scale is not installed on machines that do not need it. Availability is the policy.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

We fought this for a while, on the grounds that removing options is patronising. It is not. The people using these files are doing a different job under time pressure, and giving them fewer, better decisions is the same courtesy we would want extended to us.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

What we would do differently<\/h3><\/div>

Name the sizes in the client’s own vocabulary rather than ours. We shipped page title to a company that says headline internally, and for six months everyone translated in their heads before choosing, which is exactly the friction the system was meant to remove.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Filed under Identity · 15 Jan 2026<\/p><\/div><\/div>

All writing<\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>

Let's make
something<\/p><\/div><\/div>

last\u200b<\/em>ing<\/p><\/div><\/div>

<\/path><\/svg><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three sizes and two weights will carry a company further than a scale of eleven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-identity"],"yoast_head":"\nType systems for teams, not designers - DGBDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dgbds.uk\/?p=621\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Type systems for teams, not designers - DGBDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three sizes and two weights will carry a company further than a scale of eleven.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dgbds.uk\/?p=621\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"DGBDS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-15T09:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dgbds.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/type-concrete-facade.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"823\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deang88\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"deang88\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"deang88\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/61c90f3f067499daec0cfb1a08ddda3f\"},\"headline\":\"Type systems for teams, not designers\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-15T09:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621\"},\"wordCount\":6,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/type-concrete-facade.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Identity\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/dgbds.uk\\\/?p=621\",\"name\":\"Type systems for teams, not designers - 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