TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: RED-CAR // ETHOS: SANS-SERIF + SERIF

Balancing Red Hat Display with Cardo

Build a contrast-first system where Red Hat Display leads and Cardo keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Red Hat Display

Weight: 700

Body Face

Cardo

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Red Hat Display brings geometric, low-contrast, tech energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Cardo absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its classic, biblical, academic 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 Red Hat Display with Cardo

Build a contrast-first system where Red Hat Display leads and Cardo keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Red Hat Display brings geometric, low-contrast, tech energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Cardo absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its classic, biblical, academic 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.

Red Hat Display thrives as a headline face thanks to its geometric, low-contrast, tech qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Cardo excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its classic, biblical, academic traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.4 modular scale and reserve Red Hat Display for H1–H3 while Cardo powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

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

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

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

FAQs

Why does Red Hat Display make sense as the lead font?

Red Hat Display owns the emotional register of this system. Its geometric, low-contrast, tech profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Cardo show up?

Cardo is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its classic, biblical, academic 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.