Summary
Opries typography should be plain, structured, accessible, and durable across screens and printed documents. Type should create hierarchy, support scanning, and make long-form information easier to read before colour or decoration is noticed.
Typeface
Use system sans-serif typography for v1: Arial, Helvetica, and platform defaults. This keeps the system fast, reliable, and compatible with exported documents, dashboards, and public pages.
Use Arial as the primary brand and document typeface where a specific font must be named. Use system sans-serif stacks in product and web contexts where platform rendering matters.
Hierarchy Example
Draft report
Document Register Review
A short summary helps readers understand the purpose, status, and next action before reading the full document.
Records needing attention
The register should show the owner, review date, status, and next action for each record.
Clear records help committees make decisions without having to reconstruct the history of a project.
| Record | Status | Next action |
|---|---|---|
| Funding agreement | Review due | Confirm signed version |
| Committee approval | Current | Attach minute extract |
Table 1: Example document register hierarchy for printed or screen review.
Source: Opries example content, 2026.
Screen Type Scale
| Role | Size guidance | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Page title | 34-64 px | Major guide pages and public landing sections |
| Section heading | 26-32 px | Major content divisions |
| Subheading | 18-22 px | Component, example, or policy sections |
| Body | 16 px | Default reading text |
| Blockquote | 17-19 px | Quoted statements where exact wording matters |
| Small | 13-14 px | Metadata, table labels, captions, status context |
Print Type Scale
| Role | Size guidance | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Document title | 22-30 pt | Report covers, proposals, board papers, major handouts |
| Section heading | 15-18 pt | Major document sections |
| Subheading | 12-14 pt | Subsections, examples, policy clauses |
| Body | 10.5-12 pt | Main printed reading text |
| Blockquote | 11.5-13 pt | Quoted statements where exact wording matters |
| Caption | 8.5-9.5 pt | Image, table, figure, and chart captions |
| Source note | 8-9 pt | Source references, image credits, data notes, disclaimer notes |
| Header/footer | 8-9 pt | Page numbers, document title, version, date, organisation |
Heading Rules
Headings should be direct nouns or practical outcomes: "Document Register", "Grant Updates", "Approval History". Avoid vague headings like "A smarter way forward".
Use heading levels in order. Do not skip levels for visual effect. A page or document should be understandable from the headings alone.
Body Copy
Keep paragraphs short. Use lists for operational detail and tables when comparing rules, roles, states, or responsibilities.
Body text should be left aligned and ragged right. Do not fully justify body text in web pages, reports, handouts, board papers, proposals, or product content. Full justification can create uneven word spacing and make reading harder.
Use centred text only for a single short standalone sentence, such as a title-page statement, acknowledgement line, or short emphasis line. Do not centre paragraphs, lists, tables, warnings, instructions, or multi-sentence explanations.
Keep line lengths comfortable:
| Context | Guidance |
|---|---|
| Web/body content | Aim for roughly 60-85 characters per line |
| Printed body text | Aim for roughly 65-90 characters per line |
| Dense tables | Keep columns narrow only when the content is short and predictable |
| Long explanatory text | Use one column, not multiple narrow columns, unless the document is specifically designed for print reading |
Swiss Typographic Style
Use typography as the primary organising tool. Prefer strong alignment, consistent heading levels, short line lengths, and clear contrast between title, section, body, and metadata. Avoid decorative type treatments, novelty display styles, all-caps paragraphs, and negative letter spacing.
Use a restrained number of type sizes. Create hierarchy through size, weight, spacing, and position, not decorative font changes.
Learning and Readability
When content teaches a concept, provide more than one way to process it. Pair short explanations with examples, steps, tables, or checklists. This supports mixed literacy levels, time-poor volunteers, non-technical users, and people learning the platform at their own pace.
Use bold text as a skim layer. Bold the keywords, actions, status terms, or decision points that help someone understand the section quickly. Avoid bolding full sentences.
Captions
Captions should explain what the reader is looking at and why it matters. Use captions for images, figures, tables, charts, maps, screenshots, diagrams, and document extracts.
| Caption type | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Image | Activity, place, date or program, credit if required |
| Table | What the table compares or records |
| Chart | What the measure shows and the relevant time period |
| Screenshot | Product area, state, or workflow shown |
| Map | Location, boundary, program, source, and date |
Caption text should be smaller than body text but still readable. Do not use captions as the only place for essential meaning.
Quotes
Use quotes sparingly and only when the exact wording matters. Quotes should support evidence, lived experience, stakeholder voice, policy wording, or public statements. Do not use quotes as decoration.
Short inline quotes can sit in body text. Longer quotes should be set as blockquotes with a clear source nearby.
| Quote type | Use |
|---|---|
| Inline quote | A short phrase inside a sentence |
| Blockquote | One or two short paragraphs where the quoted wording matters |
| Pull quote | Avoid for core guidance; it can overstate one sentence and interrupt scanning |
| Policy quote | Keep exact wording and include the source reference close by |
Blockquotes should remain left aligned and ragged right. Do not centre quotes unless the quote is a single short standalone sentence in a designed title-page or campaign context.
Source References
Source references should be clear, close to the relevant content, and small enough not to interrupt reading. Use source notes for external data, quoted material, images, maps, charts, and funding or policy references.
| Source type | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Image credit | Image: Organisation or photographer, year. |
| Data source | Source: Dataset name, publisher, year. |
| Policy reference | Reference: Policy or guideline title, publisher, date. |
| Adapted material | Adapted from: Source title, publisher, date. |
Do not hide source information in a distant appendix when it is needed to understand or trust the content.
Headers and Footers
Headers and footers are part of document trust. Use them to help readers identify the document, date, page, and status without cluttering the page.
| Element | Use |
|---|---|
| Header | Short document title, section name, or organisation name |
| Footer | Page number, date, version, status, or confidentiality note |
| Page number | Use on multi-page documents and reports |
| Version/date | Use on drafts, board papers, policies, grant documents, and exported reports |
| Status | Use where readers need to know whether a document is draft, in review, approved, or archived |
Keep headers and footers small, consistent, and left/right aligned. Avoid decorative footer blocks, large logos on every page, or dense legal copy unless required.
Print Documents
For formal PDFs, proposals, reports, handouts, and board papers, keep the same hierarchy but reduce decorative styling. Use Opries colour for headings, rules, and key status labels rather than full-page colour blocks.
Print documents should include:
- clear document title
- date or version where relevant
- page numbers for multi-page documents
- readable body size and line length
- captions and source notes close to the relevant content
- accessible contrast in both colour and greyscale
- enough margins for printing, binding, and annotation
Tables in Documents
Use table typography to support comparison. Prefer open tables with horizontal row rules for text-heavy guidance. Use stronger grid structure only when precise row and column tracking is necessary.
Table headings should be short and descriptive. Keep table text left aligned unless a numeric column needs right alignment for comparison.
Checks
- Can the page be scanned from headings alone?
- Are paragraphs short enough for tired or time-poor readers?
- Are lists or tables used where they make comparison easier?
- Does the type hierarchy work before colour or decoration is noticed?
- Is body text left aligned and ragged right?
- Are captions, sources, headers, and footers clear enough for printed use?
- Would the document remain understandable in greyscale or low-quality print?