tvst / archetype

A CSS stylesheet for beautiful typography.

Archetype

A minimal stylesheet for beautiful typography.

Usage

Add archetype.css to your HTML:

<!-- Add Archetype -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="archetype.css">

<!-- Your style sheet -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css">

then make sure your style sheet (main.css in the example above) has the following set:

html {
  /* Pick the font size you want. Archetype will adapt. */
  font-size: 16px;
}

body {
  /* Choose your preferred font. */
  font-family: "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif;
}

And you're done!

If you want to change anything in Archetype, just override it in your main.css sheet.

Correcting for fonts' actual pixel sizes

If you are using a font that is always visually smaller than other fonts at the same font-size setting, Archetype can look too "spread out" or too "tight". To adjust for that, set the following property in CSS before loading archetype.css:

:root {
  --archetype-correction: 1.0;
}

If you set it to a value greater than 1, such as 1.1, more space will be added everywhere. If smaller than 1, everything will be laid out tighter.