TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: EL--BAR // ETHOS: SANS-SERIF + SANS-SERIF

Systematizing El Messiri & Barlow

Build a mono-category system where El Messiri leads and Barlow keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

El Messiri

Weight: 700

Body Face

Barlow

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. El Messiri brings arabic, modern, curved energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Barlow absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its grotesque, low-contrast, californian texture and dependable rhythm. Together they create a typography stack that scales from high-impact landing pages to dense documentation without retooling your CSS tokens.

Typographic Hierarchy & Scale

H1The Quick Fox
H2The Quick Fox
H3The Quick Fox
PThe quick brown fox jumps over...
Dark Context
Aa

High contrast negative space.

Accent
Gg

Legibility on high-chroma.

Pairing Strategy

Systematizing El Messiri & Barlow

Build a mono-category system where El Messiri leads and Barlow keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. El Messiri brings arabic, modern, curved energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Barlow absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its grotesque, low-contrast, californian texture and dependable rhythm. Together they create a typography stack that scales from high-impact landing pages to dense documentation without retooling your CSS tokens.

El Messiri thrives as a headline face thanks to its arabic, modern, curved qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Barlow excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its grotesque, low-contrast, californian traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.2 modular scale and reserve El Messiri for H1–H3 while Barlow powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

  • High-growth SaaS landing pages that require arabic hero statements with trustworthy product copy.
  • Editorial magazines and thought-leadership hubs where El Messiri can dramatize pull quotes while Barlow keeps 1,500-word essays skimmable.
  • Conversion funnels or onboarding flows that need Barlow's grotesque voice to balance El Messiri's attention-grabbing display.

Accessibility Notes

Maintain a minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio for Barlow body copy and loosen letter-spacing to 0.01em for uppercase El Messiri moments. Pairing different categories demands disciplined color pairing—test both light and dark themes to ensure Barlow does not bloom at small sizes.

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

:root {
  --tm-header-family: 'El Messiri', sans-serif;
  --tm-body-family: 'Barlow', sans-serif;
  --tm-header-weight: 700;
  --tm-body-weight: 400;
  --tm-header-tracking: -0.01em;
  --tm-body-tracking: -0.005em;
}
Heading scale: clamp(2.75rem, 3.6vw, 5.25rem) for H1, clamp(1.5rem, 2.8vw, 3rem) for H2, and keep paragraph size at 1rem–1.125rem with 1.6 line-height.
Component guidance: Buttons inherit El Messiri at 700 for momentum, while forms, tables, and footnotes stay on Barlow with 400 weight for predictable kerning.

FAQs

Why does El Messiri make sense as the lead font?

El Messiri owns the emotional register of this system. Its arabic, modern, curved profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Barlow show up?

Barlow is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its grotesque, low-contrast, californian qualities reduce fatigue on dense layouts.

Does this pairing support complex localization?

Yes—both families are available on Google Fonts with generous glyph coverage. Test cyrillic/latin accents early, but most Latin-based locales and UI patterns are fully supported.