Typography

Novem typography is the same regardless of light or dark mode, which is why the tables on this page show a single default rather than a Light and Dark column. The primitives are organised into seven groups: font families, the size scale, heading sizes, weights, line heights, letter spacing, and numeric features. Together they cover everything the platform renders — body text in documents and mails, axis and tooltip text in charts, table headers and cells, callouts and code samples.

Font families

A theme can replace any of the family stacks with brand-specific fonts and the change propagates everywhere the family is consumed. The default novem stack uses Geist for body and headings and Geist Mono for code.

The size scale

Novem uses a stepped size scale named in t-shirt sizes from xxxs up to xxxl. Each step is its own variable, and the scale is also exposed in markdown through the sz paragraph config. A theme can shift the entire scale by overriding the steps it wants and leaving the rest at their defaults.

The two largest steps — xxxxl and xxxxxl — are intended for cover titles and hero text. They sit above the regular content scale so they can be tuned independently.

Heading sizes

Each heading level has its own size variable, and the heading family and weight are pulled from the family/weight tokens so that overriding them once reshapes every heading.

Weights

The platform exposes the four most common weights as named variables. A theme can use any value the underlying font supports, but most brands work fine with the four below.

Line heights

Line height is split into a small set of named values rather than a single global setting. Body text gets a relaxed line height for readability, headings tighten up so multi-line titles don't sprawl, and tables and tooltips use a compact value because vertical space is at a premium.

Letter spacing

Letter spacing — also known as tracking — defaults to the font's natural metrics. Two named overrides cover the most common cases where you'd want to deviate.

Numeric features

Tables and charts that align columns of numbers benefit from tabular numerals (every digit takes the same width) and a slashed zero (so a 0 doesn't get confused with an O). Novem exposes these through font-feature-settings strings so that a theme can tune the typographic features its font supports.

Markdown integration

The size scale is also exposed in markdown through the sz paragraph config, so authors can change the size of an individual paragraph without dropping into CSS.

{{ para sz=l }}This paragraph renders at --novem-font-size-l. {{ end }}

Valid sz values are xxxs, xxs, xs, s, m, l, xl, xxl, xxxl, xxxxl and xxxxxl. Override any step in your org theme and every paragraph that targets that step shifts with it.