TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: SPE-FOR // ETHOS: SERIF + DISPLAY

Balancing Spectral with Forum

Build a contrast-first system where Spectral leads and Forum keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Spectral

Weight: 700

Body Face

Forum

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Spectral brings screen-first, efficient, rich energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Forum absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its roman, classic, antique 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 Spectral with Forum

Build a contrast-first system where Spectral leads and Forum keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Spectral brings screen-first, efficient, rich energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Forum absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its roman, classic, antique 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.

Spectral thrives as a headline face thanks to its screen-first, efficient, rich qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Forum excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its roman, classic, antique traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.4 modular scale and reserve Spectral for H1–H3 while Forum powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

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

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

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

FAQs

Why does Spectral make sense as the lead font?

Spectral owns the emotional register of this system. Its screen-first, efficient, rich profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Forum show up?

Forum is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its roman, classic, antique 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.