A type scale you can keep in your head

2026-05-02

Generated type scales hand you thirteen steps. A small site needs four, and picking from four is the entire reason the result looks composed.

The four

Body at 17px. A lede one step up at 1.12×, large enough to read as an opening but not as a heading. Section headings at 1.2×. The page title at roughly 1.9×. Everything else — dates, navigation, footer — sits below body at about 0.85× and switches to the sans face so it stops competing with the prose.

Why fewer is better

Every additional step is a decision you have to make again on the next page, and inconsistency between pages reads as sloppiness far more than a slightly wrong ratio does. Four sizes are memorable. Thirteen are a lookup table you will not open.

The line length matters more

A 40rem measure lands near 70 characters at this size. Getting that wrong ruins good type; getting the scale slightly wrong barely shows.