TYPEMATCHSEO
Launch

TYPEMATCH.

V2.1

Browse Directory
700
400
PAIRING ID: ZIL-BAR // ETHOS: SERIF + SANS-SERIF

Balancing Zilla Slab with Barlow

Build a contrast-first system where Zilla Slab leads and Barlow keeps long-form content legible.

Display Face

Zilla Slab

Weight: 700

Body Face

Barlow

Weight: 400

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Zilla Slab brings slab, industrial, coding energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Barlow absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its grotesque, low-contrast, californian 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 Zilla Slab with Barlow

Build a contrast-first system where Zilla Slab leads and Barlow keeps long-form content legible.

This pairing is engineered for teams that need a clear hierarchy without sacrificing brand voice. Zilla Slab brings slab, industrial, coding energy to hero units, pricing sections, and campaign headlines. Barlow absorbs the heavy lifting for paragraphs, product storytelling, and UI labels with its grotesque, low-contrast, californian 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.

Zilla Slab thrives as a headline face thanks to its slab, industrial, coding qualities. Use weights 700–900 for crisp editorial lockups.
Barlow excels in paragraphs and UI thanks to its grotesque, low-contrast, californian traits. Keep it between weights 400–600 for optimal readability.
Hierarchy guidance: run a 1:1.4 modular scale and reserve Zilla Slab for H1–H3 while Barlow powers captions, body copy, and data tables.

Best-Fit Use Cases

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

Accessibility Notes

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

CSS Implementation Cheatsheet

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

FAQs

Why does Zilla Slab make sense as the lead font?

Zilla Slab owns the emotional register of this system. Its slab, industrial, coding profile helps anchor campaign creative, meaning marketing and product teams can reuse the same voice without reinventing the scale.

Where should Barlow show up?

Barlow is the workhorse. Keep it in paragraphs, long-form editorial, knowledge bases, or anywhere legibility is non-negotiable. Its grotesque, low-contrast, californian 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.