TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: PLA-MER // ETHOS: SANS-SERIF + SERIF

Balancing Play with Merriweather

Build a contrast-first system where Play leads and Merriweather keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Play

Weight: 700

Body Face

Merriweather

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Play brings minimal, tech, screen energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Merriweather absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its readable, traditional, sturdy 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 Play with Merriweather

Build a contrast-first system where Play leads and Merriweather keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Play brings minimal, tech, screen energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Merriweather absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its readable, traditional, sturdy 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.

Play thrives as a headline face thanks to its minimal, tech, screen qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Merriweather excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its readable, traditional, sturdy traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.4 modular scale and reserve Play for H1–H3 while Merriweather powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

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

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

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

FAQs

Why does Play make sense as the lead font?

Play owns the emotional register of this system. Its minimal, tech, screen profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Merriweather show up?

Merriweather is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its readable, traditional, sturdy 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.