HR Gurus website · 6 September 2026
Three typefaces are doing the work on your new site. A fourth, Now, is proposed for one job and is not installed. This page measures all four side by side, so the decision about Now rests on something you can see rather than on our opinion.
Your current website is set in Manrope from top to bottom — body, headings, navigation, buttons. Now is not on it. It arrives with the new design direction, where it was proposed for sub-headings: the line that sits under a section heading. Nothing on the new site uses it yet, because sub-headings are set in Poppins and read well that way.
So the question is whether to bring Now in for that one job. It is worth answering with something better than an opinion, so here is the measurement.
Measuring…
This is the only place the two would ever meet: a sub-heading sitting above your body copy. Poppins on the left, Now on the right. Same words, same size, same weight.
Poppins 700 · what the new site does today
When does a growing business actually need HR support?
Most owners call us at the point where the people side has started eating the week. Not because anything has gone wrong, but because nothing is written down.
Now SemiBold · the proposed alternative
When does a growing business actually need HR support?
Most owners call us at the point where the people side has started eating the week. Not because anything has gone wrong, but because nothing is written down.
Poppins 700 · headings, sub-headings, buttons
We humanise HR
Now SemiBold · proposed, not installed
We humanise HR
DM Sans 400 · body copy, at the size the site uses
Outsourced HR for growing businesses. We write the contracts, run the hard conversations, and keep you on the right side of the Fair Work Act — without putting an HR manager on your payroll.
Caveat 700 · display asides only, 26px and up
Straight-talking HR, no jargon
These numbers are taken in your browser as this page loads, by drawing each typeface and measuring the pixels. Nothing here is typed in by hand.
| Measuring… |
How to read it. x-height is the height of a lower-case ‘x’ as a fraction of the nominal size — the bigger it is, the larger the face looks at the same point size. Reads like DM Sans at takes that further: it is the size your body face would need to be to look the same. I / l, O / 0 and rn / m score how much two easily-confused shapes overlap, from 1.00 (identical) to 0.00 (nothing in common) — it matters most in a phone number, a postcode or a clause reference.
One thing we have not tried to measure is aperture — how open the letterforms are. There is no honest number for it, so we have left it to the eye rather than invent one.
Every typeface file a visitor downloads, and the weights each one covers. Read off the live site, not from a spec.
| Typeface | Weights loaded | Weights used on the site | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| DM Sans | 300 700 | 400, 500, 600, 700 | woff2 |
| Poppins | 700 / 800 | 700, 800 | woff2 |
| Caveat | 400 700 | 700 | woff2 |
| Now | 100–900, nine files held | not installed — proposed only | woff2, otf, ttf |
Asking for a weight you have not got. If a page asks for a weight that is not loaded, the browser fakes it by smearing the nearest one. It looks heavier and muddier than a real bold, and it is most obvious at large sizes. Worth knowing when someone on your team wants a lighter or heavier version of something: ask us, and we will add the real file rather than let the browser invent one.
| Typeface | Licence | Commercial use | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poppins | SIL Open Font License 1.1 | Yes, no fee | Google Fonts, served from your own site |
| DM Sans | SIL Open Font License 1.1 | Yes, no fee | Google Fonts, served from your own site |
| Caveat | SIL Open Font License 1.1 | Yes, no fee | Google Fonts, served from your own site |
| Now | SIL Open Font License 1.1 | Yes, no fee | Alfredo Marco Pradil (hanken.co). Not on Google Fonts — we hold the files and would install them ourselves |
All four are free for commercial use with no ongoing fee, and all four are served from your own site rather than called from a third party, so no visitor data leaves your domain to load them. The Now licence travels with the files: read it here.
Our recommendation is to leave Now out, for two plain reasons. Poppins already sets your sub-headings and reads well doing it. And every extra typeface is another file each visitor downloads before your words appear.
The case for bringing it in is a real one, though. Now’s shorter lower-case letters give a sub-heading a lighter, more spacious feel beside a Poppins heading — a genuine difference in texture rather than a cosmetic one. It also scored better than Poppins on every pair of letters people mix up. If that lighter feel is what you want under your headings, say so and we will install it, set a size or two larger to make up for the shorter letters.
Either answer is defensible. What we did not want to do was ask you to drop a typeface from your own brand without showing you what you would be dropping.
But it is your brand, not ours. If Now means something to you — and it has been on your site for years — keeping it is completely reasonable. We hold the files, the licence allows it, and putting it back is a small piece of work. Nothing about this page is an argument you should not.