When I redesigned my portfolio last year, I spent more time on typography than on any other element. Not because the choice was complicated — but because it was the most important. Typography is the first thing visitors feel, even before they consciously notice it.
Start With One Family
The most common mistake in minimal design is using too many typefaces. Start with one. Learn it deeply — its weights, its optical sizes, how it reads at 11px and at 40px. A single well-chosen family can carry an entire site.
For Shikishi, I chose HKGrotesk Light. It reads cleanly at small sizes, holds its form at display scale, and has a slightly editorial quality that fits the brand.
Weight Over Style
In a minimal palette, weight variation does the work that color usually does. A 300-weight body next to a 300-weight heading creates subtle hierarchy through size alone. Resist the urge to add bold or italic — they break the visual rhythm of a light-first design.
Light type at generous size and spacing reads as confident, not weak.
Letter-Spacing Is a Design Tool
Wide letter-spacing on uppercase text has become a signature of Japanese-influenced minimal design. It creates breathing room, slows the eye, and gives small text a sense of presence. Use it deliberately — on labels, navigation, section titles — not universally.
Line height is equally important. For body text, I target 200%. For captions and metadata, 160%. These aren't arbitrary numbers — they reflect how the eye moves through a column of text.
