: Design issues concerning header and body fonts with a different x-height I've heard it's harmonious to have the header and body text have similar x-heights. What if your headers have a lower

@XinRu324

It's not really a hard and fast rule, it's just a good idea. But also a lot of times fonts that are very different from each other look great. I wouldn't want to pair a header font with a small x-height with a body font with a large x-height if they look similar, but if there's a lot of contrast between the two, it will probably have a big impact. For example using a script font with a large x-height and thick letter forms with a thin sans-serif body font will probably look good even if the x-heights are different.

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@Annie732

I wouldn't call that a huge problem. Pick a good body text font and really what heading font you use is less important. (I'm assuming you're typesetting something like a book or a leaflet or a website with quite a lot of extended text - something where the body text really takes up most of the space.) The real mistake they're trying to help you avoid in these guidelines, I think, is you picking a poor body text font that seems complementary to a heading font, something like ITC Garamond.

It might look odd if you paired a normal x-height body text font with a very high x-height heading font (like Impact). But if you were planning to pair (say) Avenir for body text and Cochin for headings that would be fine, as long as you set both at reasonable sizes.

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@Reiling762

No, you're not breaking design rules. You can mix and match fonts with various x-heights; what's important is to look at the page and see if it's readable.

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