TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: MAD-CRI // ETHOS: SANS-SERIF + SERIF

Balancing Mada with Crimson Text

Build a contrast-first system where Mada leads and Crimson Text keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Mada

Weight: 700

Body Face

Crimson Text

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Mada brings arabic, modern, low-contrast energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Crimson Text absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its bookish, traditional, old-style 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

Balancing Mada with Crimson Text

Build a contrast-first system where Mada leads and Crimson Text keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Mada brings arabic, modern, low-contrast energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Crimson Text absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its bookish, traditional, old-style 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.

Mada thrives as a headline face thanks to its arabic, modern, low-contrast qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Crimson Text excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its bookish, traditional, old-style traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.4 modular scale and reserve Mada for H1–H3 while Crimson Text 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 Mada can dramatize pull quotes while Crimson Text keeps 1,500-word essays skimmable.
  • Conversion funnels or onboarding flows that need Crimson Text's bookish voice to balance Mada's attention-grabbing display.

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

:root {
  --tm-header-family: 'Mada', sans-serif;
  --tm-body-family: 'Crimson Text', serif;
  --tm-header-weight: 700;
  --tm-body-weight: 400;
  --tm-header-tracking: -0.01em;
  --tm-body-tracking: 0em;
}
Heading scale: clamp(2.75rem, 4.5vw, 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 Mada at 700 for momentum, while forms, tables, and footnotes stay on Crimson Text with 400 weight for predictable kerning.

FAQs

Why does Mada make sense as the lead font?

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

Where should Crimson Text show up?

Crimson Text is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its bookish, traditional, old-style 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.