TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: HAN-VAR // ETHOS: SANS-SERIF + SANS-SERIF

Systematizing Hanken Grotesk & Varela Round

Build a mono-category system where Hanken Grotesk leads and Varela Round keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Hanken Grotesk

Weight: 700

Body Face

Varela Round

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Hanken Grotesk brings grotesque, clean, neutral energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Varela Round absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its rounded, soft, friendly 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 Hanken Grotesk & Varela Round

Build a mono-category system where Hanken Grotesk leads and Varela Round keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Hanken Grotesk brings grotesque, clean, neutral energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Varela Round absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its rounded, soft, friendly 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.

Hanken Grotesk thrives as a headline face thanks to its grotesque, clean, neutral qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Varela Round excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its rounded, soft, friendly traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.2 modular scale and reserve Hanken Grotesk for H1–H3 while Varela Round powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

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

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

:root {
  --tm-header-family: 'Hanken Grotesk', sans-serif;
  --tm-body-family: 'Varela Round', 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 Hanken Grotesk at 700 for momentum, while forms, tables, and footnotes stay on Varela Round with 400 weight for predictable kerning.

FAQs

Why does Hanken Grotesk make sense as the lead font?

Hanken Grotesk owns the emotional register of this system. Its grotesque, clean, neutral profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Varela Round show up?

Varela Round is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its rounded, soft, friendly 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.