Creating typography system in Figma
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Nick discusses the importance of typography in UI design, emphasizing that most websites and apps rely heavily on it. He introduces four essential Figma plugins to enhance typography: 'Phone Pair' for pairing fonts effectively, 'Typescale' for creating a visual rhythm, 'Font Changer' for applying custom fonts across the design, and 'For Old Facia' for auditing font usage. These tools help designers make informed artistic choices and ensure consistency in their UI typography.
Takeaways
- 🎨 **Typography Importance**: Good typography is crucial in UI design, as most websites and mobile apps are text-based.
- 🔍 **Font Pairing**: 'Phone Pair' plugin helps in pairing fonts for headings and body text, often using serif for headings and sans serif for readability.
- 🆓 **Free Fonts**: The plugin uses Google Fonts, which are free to use, providing flexibility in font selection.
- 🔄 **Customization**: Users can lock certain font faces and experiment with different pairings for headings and body text.
- 📝 **Text Customization**: The plugin allows changing the actual text to see how copy looks with selected fonts, aiding in design decisions.
- 📏 **Type Scale**: 'Typescale' plugin creates a visual rhythm for typography, with settings for base size and scaling ratio.
- 📐 **Base Size**: Common base sizes are 14 pixels for mobile apps and 16 pixels for websites, affecting the overall type scale.
- 🎵 **Scaling Ratio**: Minor third is a typical multiplier for UI design, while the Golden Ratio can be chosen for more artistic designs.
- 🛠 **Font Changer**: 'Font Changer' plugin allows for bulk replacement of fonts across design layers to align with design choices.
- 🔍 **Visual Audit**: 'For Old Fascia' plugin conducts a design audit, identifying and listing all font names and properties used.
- 📋 **Design Consistency**: The audit helps ensure no fonts are accidentally left unchanged, maintaining consistency across the design.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video by Nick?
-The video by Nick focuses on typography in UI design and discusses four essential Figma plugins to improve typography systems.
Why is typography considered important in UI design?
-Typography is important in UI design because most websites and mobile apps are text-heavy, and good typography enhances readability and design quality.
What is the first plugin mentioned in the video, and what does it do?
-The first plugin mentioned is 'Phone Pair', which allows users to pair fonts for headings and body text, improving the text's readability.
What type of fonts are typically chosen for headings and body text in UI design?
-Typically, a serif font is chosen for headings and a sans-serif font for body text to make the text easier to read.
How does the 'Phone Pair' plugin utilize Google Fonts?
-The 'Phone Pair' plugin uses Google Fonts, which are free to use, allowing users to experiment with different font combinations.
What is a type scale and why is it important in UI design?
-A type scale is a modular system that creates a visual rhythm for typography. It's important because it helps maintain consistency and hierarchy in UI design.
What are the typical base sizes used in type scale for mobile apps and websites?
-The typical base sizes are 14 pixels for mobile apps and 16 pixels for websites.
What is the difference between the minor third and the Golden Ratio in type scale settings?
-The minor third is a multiplier used for UI design that provides a subtle change between scales, while the Golden Ratio creates a more drastic change, often used for artistic choices.
How can the 'Font Changer' plugin help in aligning the type scale with custom fonts?
-The 'Font Changer' plugin allows users to select all layers and apply a new font face to them, ensuring the type scale is consistent with the chosen custom fonts.
What is the purpose of the 'Font Audit' plugin mentioned in the video?
-The 'Font Audit' plugin helps in conducting a visual analysis of the design by identifying the font names and properties used, ensuring no fonts are accidentally left unchanged.
What does Nick suggest as the best approach for choosing parts of the type scale for headings?
-Nick suggests that there are no right or wrong choices when deciding which part of the type scale to use for headings; it's about the designer's artistic choices and the specific needs of the design.
Outlines
🔠 Typography and Figma Plugins
This paragraph introduces the topic of typography in UI design and highlights the importance of good typography for enhancing the user experience. Nick, the speaker, discusses four essential Figma plugins that can improve typography systems. The first plugin mentioned is 'Phone Pair', which facilitates the pairing of fonts for headings and body text, often using serif fonts for headings and sans serif for body text to improve readability. The plugin is appreciated for using Google Fonts, which are free to use, and for allowing users to experiment with different font combinations. The speaker also touches on the ability to lock a font face for headings and choose different pairs for body text, as well as customizing the text to see how the chosen font affects the design.
📐 Type Scale and Font Audit
The second paragraph delves into the concept of a type scale, a modular system that creates visual rhythm in typography. The 'Typescale' plugin is introduced, which allows users to set a base size and scale ratio, typically minor third for UI design, to generate a type scale system that can be modified. The speaker chooses a base size of 16 pixels for body text and 48 pixels for heading, indicating the flexibility of the plugin to suit different design needs. However, a limitation is noted: the plugin uses Inter font by default, which may not align with a designer's font choices. To address this, the 'Font Changer' plugin is mentioned, enabling users to replace the default font with a preferred one across all layers. Lastly, the 'Font Audit' plugin is highlighted for conducting a visual analysis to ensure consistency in font usage across the design.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Typography
💡UI Design
💡Figma
💡Font Pairing
💡Serif Font
💡Sans Serif Font
💡Type Scale
💡Base Size
💡Minor Third
💡Golden Ratio
💡Font Changer
💡Visual Analysis
Highlights
Nick discusses the importance of typography in UI design, emphasizing that most websites and mobile apps rely heavily on it.
Introduces four essential Figma plugins to improve typography systems.
Phone Pair is the first plugin, allowing users to pair fonts for headings and body text.
Typically, serif fonts are chosen for headings and sans serif for body text to enhance readability.
The plugin uses Google Fonts, which are free to use.
Users can lock a font face for headings and choose different pairs for body text.
The plugin also allows for changing the actual text to see how it looks with the chosen font.
Type Scale is the second plugin, creating a visual rhythm for typography.
Base size is a crucial setting, commonly 14 pixels for mobile apps and 16 pixels for websites.
Type Scale defines the scaling of type, with minor third being a common choice for UI design.
The plugin generates a type scale system that can be modified according to design needs.
Font Changer is the third plugin, allowing users to change the font face of selected layers.
Users can replace the original font with a new one to align with their design choices.
Font Audit is the fourth plugin, used to conduct a visual analysis of font usage in a design.
The plugin identifies and lists the font names and properties used, helping to ensure consistency.
The downside of Type Scale is that it uses Inter, which may not always align with a designer's font preferences.
Nick concludes by thanking the audience for watching the video on typography plugins in Figma.
Transcripts
hello it's Nick and today I'm going to
talk about typography in UI design
most websites and mobile apps are 90 tax
that's why good typography is good
design and in this video I want to talk
about four essential plugins for figma
that allow us to improve typography
systems and phone pair is the first
plugin on our list and as you probably
guess this plugin allows us to pair
fonts
it allow us to choose the different ones
for headings and body text and usually
we go for the serif font for headings
and sounds serif for body text because
it makes the text easier to read
and we can play with the different uh
fonts here one till we find the one that
we like or we can alternatively go to
the old phone pairings and choose the
best from the list and I think I will
choose this one the great thing is that
this plugin uses go phones so they are
free to use and we can also play with
the different combinations for example I
want to lock the
font face this one for the headings and
choose the different pair for only
modifying the body text here so until we
find the best or we can also change the
actual text for example see how our copy
will look like with the font that we
choose for example hello there
add snake and I'm happy to see
so we can find the different pair for
our specific copy
so once we find the fonts that we like
the next thing is to create a type scale
type scale is a modular system that
allows us to create a visual Rhythm for
our phones and this plugin calls
typescale allow us to create this scale
the most important settings here are
base size and scale base size is a
generally 14 pixels or 16 pixels and
they are most commonly used
font size on your web or mobile app and
if you go for the 14 pixels you
typically design mobile app and 16
pixels work best for the websites
typescale defines how much the type will
scales and usually when you design
mobile app or website you go for the
minor third this is basically a
multiplier between different scales in
this scale and if you want to make a
more artistic choice you will likely go
for the Golden Ratio golden ratio
creates a more drastic change between
the sections
but again if you design for UI you
typically go for the minor third because
it works the best for UI design
and once you generate it will generate
the type scale systems that you can
modify and as we discussed I will go for
the body text for
16 pixels body copy and I will choose 48
pixels as a heading head in first and we
can also new to heading
second heading third and adding four
so ultimately it's up to you to decide
what exact part of the scale you will
use for the headings
it's there are no right or wrong choices
so it's ultimately about your design
first and about your artistic choices
but downside of the plugin is that it
uses the different font it uses inter
for the one creates this scale and what
if I want to see how my scale will look
like using my own font and I don't don't
want to go manually and change each
section here there is a way to do that
and I will need to select all my layers
and apply the plugin called font changer
this font changer basically selects the
font face that we want to modify and
allow us to change it to the one that we
choose from a list for example I will go
for the San Francisco Pro and we will
simply replace it so that's it I
replaced the original phone to the new
one and my scale is aligned with my
choices for the fonts
but sometimes we need to conduct a
visual analysis of how many different
ones we use because sometimes we might
accidentally Miss and leave some fonts
unchanged in our system and the plugin
called for old fascia allow us to
conduct a audit of the design and find
the font names used in our design and
along with the properties so as you can
see here it shows us that we use San
Francisco Pro medium for our design but
we also use inter and enter is used for
the this element the one that we didn't
modify when we changed the scale
so these were the four plugins that I
want to discuss today and thank you
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