Trends show up in the numbers before they show up on Behance.
By the time a face is everywhere, it’s too late to be early. Pulse spots the climb while there’s still room to own it.
Families climbing right now, updated Monday.
01Why it matters
Taste is a guess. Pulse shows you the numbers.
The look of the web turns over faster than any portfolio, mood board or AI model can keep up with. Here’s what that means for your work.
Yesterday’s favorite is today’s tell.
Every face peaks. Using one on the way down dates the work before it launches.
Studio favorites that are now fading.
Your AI is working from old news.
Every AI model learned design up to its training date. Pulse hands it this week’s numbers, so its advice is current.
One button turns the whole suite into a ready prompt.
Looking like everyone else is the real risk.
Know what the big platforms do, so you can choose exactly where to fit in and where to break away.
Studios and platforms measured side by side.
02See the difference
Same words. Different year.
The same headline in two faces. One was the studio favorite. One is climbing now. Nobody has to know the numbers to feel the difference.
The new season starts here.
The new season starts here.
03This week’s readings
Four readings. All live, all real.
Type Font Pulse
–
See what’s rising
Design Design Pulse
–
typefaces climbing on Google Fonts.
corner radius on studio sites.
Compare the camps
Color Color Pulse
–
of the screen in accent color on studio sites.
Build a palette
System Direction
1
click turns the readings into a starting system you can export.
Build a direction
04Try it
Is your font dated?
Type the face you’re using now. Pulse checks it against this week’s numbers and gives you a straight answer.
Your verdict appears here: rising, near peak, fading, steady or evergreen, with what to do about it.
05This week’s verdicts
Use now. Use knowingly. Retire.
Use now Breakout
Growth speeding up, plenty of room left.
Use knowingly Near peak
Everywhere already. It may read as dated within a year.
Retire Fading
On the way out. Use only if the point is the era.
06How to use it
From blank page to direction in four moves.
- 01
Read the room
Open Font Pulse. Start with Rising, or set the attitude dial to the feeling you’re after, from Boring to Blow your mind.
Open Font Pulse - 02
Shortlist faces
Open any face to see its trend line, its best pairings and a spec sheet. Pin up to four and compare them side by side.
Start a shortlist - 03
Pick your camp
Design Pulse and Color Pulse show what Google, Apple and the studios do. Decide where to fit in and where to break out.
Compare the camps - 04
Make it real
Build a direction and export the tokens, or press Copy for AI, add one line about your project and paste.
Build a direction
07Start from a feeling
Pick an attitude. Pulse finds the faces.
Ten stops from the safest choice to the wildest. Each word is set in a face that lives there. Click one to see this week’s fonts for that feeling.
08Proof
This page was designed by this week’s Pulse.
We ran Pulse’s own prompt on this page with one line of brief: a landing page for Pulse, attitude “The coolest.” Every choice below came out of the numbers.
- Type
- Zalando Sans for everything you read, rising. One variable family from narrow to wide, so a single face carries the whole page.
- Numbers
- Red Hat Mono for every figure, rising. Numbers deserve their own voice.
- Corners
- 2 px, the studios’ median, instead of the 20 px Google and Apple use. Soft enough to feel finished, sharp enough to feel designed.
- Color
- Ink, paper and one accent covering about 13% of the screen, the studio median. Caps only in small labels.
09Copy for AI
One button. Everything Pulse knows.
- Press Copy for AI on any Pulse page.
- Paste into Claude, ChatGPT or any AI.
- Fill in two lines: your project and the attitude you want.
- Get back a direction, type pairings, layout tokens, a tested palette and ready CSS.
Loading the prompt…
10Who it’s for
For people who notice type.
Art directors
Walk into the pitch knowing what’s next, and what your client’s competitors are about to use.
Brand designers
Choose faces that won’t date the identity in a year, or ride the rise on purpose.
Product teams
Corners, borders, glass and type scale, measured against Google, Apple and the best product sites.
Type nerds
Serving counts, axes, styles, history and keyboard shortcuts. Every number has its method.
11What changed
This week on the chart.
12Straight answers
Questions designers ask.
Is this real data?
Yes. Type numbers are Google’s own counts of how often each Google Fonts family is served across the web. Design and color come from loading real home pages in a browser and measuring what’s on screen. Nothing is estimated or made up.
How often does it update?
Every Monday morning, automatically. The fonts, the measurements, the verdicts and the Copy for AI prompt all refresh together.
Can I trust a forecast?
Treat Breakout as an early signal, not a promise. It flags growth that is speeding up across four time windows. Most rising faces keep climbing for a while; some stall. The stage and the numbers are always shown so you can judge.
Does it cover Adobe Fonts?
Adobe doesn’t publish usage numbers, so the trends are Google Fonts only. Font Pulse can suggest close Adobe Fonts matches for any face. Turn on Adobe matches in its controls.
Why does popularity matter?
Because your audience has seen it. A face at its peak is on every second site they visit this year. Sometimes that’s the goal. Usually you want to know before you choose.
Is it free?
Yes. No account, no sign-up. It’s a lab project by Kevin Halstead, a Chicago art director who got tired of guessing what was next.