Typography

Overview

Users absorb information, follow instructions and complete tasks primarily through reading text. It is important to use good typographic principles to establish a visual hierarchy and present content as clearly as possible.

Our typefaces

At the Office for National Statistics (ONS) we use four typefaces for consistency across our content.

Primary typeface

Our primary typeface is Open Sans as it is well-balanced between personality and readability. It should be used across all print and digital communications and is available to anyone with an Adobe Creative Cloud license.

View and download Open Sans in Adobe Fonts (opens in a new tab) 

We use Open Sans Light, Regular, Semibold and Bold to create hierarchy and emphasis.

The letterforms have a good level of contrast, which boosts readability on poorer quality displays and helps users with visual impairments.

Alternative typeface

For on-screen communications where Open Sans is not available, such as PowerPoint presentations, Arial is our alternative typeface.

When using Arial, headings and subheadings are set in bold and body copy should be set in regular.

Translation typeface

Some of our communications are available in different languages. In these instances, Noto Sans should be used for all our translated materials.

We use Noto Sans Light, Regular, Semibold and Bold to create hierarchy and emphasis. For consistency we always set Noto Sans in sentence case.

View and download Noto Sans and its language variants from Google Fonts (opens in a new tab) 

Logo typeface

Dax Pro should only ever be used for the ONS logo.

Applying our typography

Typography is important for creating a visual hierarchy. A hierarchy guides a user's attention to certain areas of text by using weight, colour and size.

The largest element on the page naturally draws the eye first and ensures users read the information in the order you want them to.

Applying our type styles in a consistent manner across our communications will build hierarchy and brand recognition with our users. They help to create impactful, informative statements and content that is easy to skim.

Type styles

ONS designers can access a shared library of type styles built in to our design tools. These use the Open Sans typeface. Use the library to keep typography consistent across products. They can currently be used for:

• PDF reports
• printed reports
• flyers and leaflets
• survey letters
• posters

ONS staff creating documents in Word or presentations in PowerPoint please use the in-built styles which we have set up in the official ONS templates. These will use the Arial typeface.

Paragraph spacing

Spacing between paragraphs should be of equal proportion throughout our documents. This is normally set at a minimum of 2pt.

The final paragraph at the end of a section of content should be followed by double the amount of space used between paragraphs.

This shows that the section has come to an end and the next section contains information on a different topic.

General typesetting guidance

Case setting

All text should use sentence case. Sentence case involves capitalising only the first word and any proper nouns in titles, chapter, and section headings.

Product codes are an exception and should be capitalised.

Alignment

Content should generally be aligned to the left hand-side of a page.

Do not fully justify your content as it is harder to read.

Styling

Bold, semi-bold and the use of colour can be used to highlight specific areas of text when required but cannot be solely relied upon to show importance.

Help improve this page

Let us know how we could improve this page, or share your user research findings. Discuss this page on GitHub (opens in a new tab)