Patterson typography — full reference

Source keys: [BG25 p.N] Brand Guide 2025 (authoritative) · [DS20 p.N] DesignSystem_042120 · [DPL] Digital Pattern Library v5.7.2 · [PCOM] pattersoncompanies.com theme stylesheet.

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1. Families [BG25 p.25]

Tier	Face	Use
Primary	Proxima Nova Extrabold	Titles and headlines
Secondary	Proxima Nova Semibold	Subheads (clear visual hierarchy)
Tertiary	Proxima Nova Regular or Light	Body copy, long-form supporting copy — pick by legibility and contrast
CTA	Proxima Nova Bold	Calls to action [BG25 p.27]
OfficeSuite	Arial Regular / Arial Bold	Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint. Arial Nova Light is available as an extra weight where installed

Production stack, verbatim:

/* [DPL] */
font-family: proxima-nova, Arial, sans-serif;

/* [PCOM] */
--font-proxima-nova: proxima-nova, sans-serif;

2. Font licensing — read before writing any CSS

Proxima Nova is a commercial typeface by Mark Simonson Studio, licensed to Patterson through Adobe Fonts (Typekit). Two kits are in evidence, and they are not interchangeable:

Kit	Serves	Faces published	Last published
uth1qfm — use this one	Patterson Digital Pattern Library v5.7.2 — https://use.typekit.net/uth1qfm.css	10 — 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, each in normal and italic	2019-03-05
rul6mjk — superseded, deficient	pattersoncompanies.com — https://use.typekit.net/rul6mjk.css	4 — 400 and 700 only, normal and italic	2024-08-01

uth1qfm serves the complete brand range, including Semibold (600) and Extrabold (800). Both kits are live and currently serving; verified 2026-08-11 by fetching each stylesheet and counting its @font-face blocks and font-weight declarations.

Caution

Do not ship font binaries. Adobe Fonts’ standard terms serve fonts from Adobe’s CDN via a kit ID. They do not grant the right to extract, re-host, redistribute or bundle the binaries. A plugin, npm package or marketplace artifact containing them would be a redistribution.

An earlier Patterson plugin (patterson-design-plugins) shipped three .woff2 files claimed to be “licensed Adobe Fonts binaries, provided by the user.” An md5 check found proxima-nova-italic.woff2 to be byte-identical to the Adobe CDN payload for fvd=i4, contradicting that claim. Those files must not be reproduced.

Do this instead:

1. Load the kit:

   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://use.typekit.net/uth1qfm.css">

   Use uth1qfm. rul6mjk will render, but silently drops you to browser-synthesised 600 and 800.

2. Declare the production stack. This is exactly what the production DPL does. Ship no @font-face rules.

   font-family: "proxima-nova", Arial, sans-serif;

3. Arial is the sanctioned fallback and is present on every PC and Mac — nothing needs shipping.

4. Do not substitute a lookalike. A previous extraction inserted Figtree (Google Fonts) ahead of Arial. Figtree appears in no Patterson source document. Choosing a free fallback is a brand decision, not an engineering one.

Weight coverage — resolved by kit choice

Note

This was previously recorded as an unresolved blocker requiring Adobe. It is not. The deficiency belongs to rul6mjk alone, which declares exactly four faces: n4 (400 normal), n7 (700 normal), i4 (400 italic), i7 (700 italic) — no Semibold and no Extrabold. uth1qfm declares ten: n4/i4, n5/i5, n6/i6, n7/i7, n8/i8, i.e. 400/500/600/700/800 in both styles. Semibold 600 and Extrabold 800 are already licensed and already serving.

The fix is a kit swap, not an Adobe negotiation. Anywhere that loads rul6mjk, load uth1qfm instead. Pages still on rul6mjk are getting browser-synthesised 600 and 800, which is why those weights look wrong.

Warning

Resolved pending account-owner sign-off. uth1qfm was last published 2019-03-05, older than rul6mjk (2024-08-01), yet carries more weights. That it is still serving is evidence the kit is live, not proof it is sanctioned. Whoever owns Patterson’s Adobe Fonts account must confirm uth1qfm is an active, correctly-licensed Patterson kit rather than a legacy one before this is treated as fully closed. Route to Corporate Marketing / the Adobe Fonts account owner.

[TBD: confirmation from the Adobe Fonts account owner that kit uth1qfm is an active, sanctioned Patterson kit and not a legacy one, and that rul6mjk can be retired.] [TBD: whether Patterson holds a desktop Proxima Nova licence for InDesign/Illustrator work, and how many seats.] [TBD: whether Patterson's Adobe Fonts plan permits self-hosting.]

3. Case — the 2025 reversal

Source	Rule
[BG25 p.25]	“All caps are to be avoided in any digital channel since this is regarded as shouting.”
[BG25 p.26]	“Making the case for sentence case” — all-caps in headlines “may no longer be practical”; cites decorum and audible reading technology (screen readers)
[BG25 p.59]	For UX: “titles, headlines, subheads, text and captions are all sentence case”
[BG25 p.57]	Button text: “sentence case (never all caps)”
[DS20 p.10]	“Use sentence case for headlines, buttons, textlinks, and eyebrows”

Surviving all-caps exceptions: titles may be all caps in print [BG25 p.25]; titles and footer text are Extrabold or Semibold all caps [BG25 p.27]; the email-signature brand promise line is all caps [BG25 p.28].

Warning

This reverses the 2022 guide, which stated “Titles should be all caps” and set its own headings in caps. Anything dated 2022 or earlier is superseded on this point.

4. Typographic specification [BG25 p.27]

All elements are flush left, sentence case, optical tracking.

Element	Face	Tracking	Leading
Headline	Proxima Nova Extrabold (optional sky blue or white)	−10 (−25 OK at large scale)	75% of size (24 pt type → 18.5 pt)
Subhead	Proxima Nova Extrabold	−10 (−25 large)	75% of size
Secondary subhead	Proxima Nova Semibold	−10	75% of size
Body copy	Proxima Nova Light or Regular (by scale)	0 to −10	125%–150% of size (10 pt → 15 pt)
CTA	Proxima Nova Bold	−10 (−25 large)	75% of size
Titles, footer text	Proxima Nova Extrabold or Semibold, all caps	−10 (−25 large)	75% of size

Note

InDesign tracking units are 1/1000 em → −10 = -0.01em, −25 = -0.025em.

5. Shipped web type scale [DPL]

Role	Size	Line height	Weight	Color
h1 desktop	36px	1.25	800	#003767
h1 ≤600px	24px	1.15	800	#003767
h2	24px	1.3	700	#003767
h3	18px	1.3	700	#003767
Body	18px	1.5	400	#58585B
Eyebrow	15px	19px	700	#00817D (teal)
Button / CTA	15px	1.15	600	#FFFFFF
Tertiary text link	18px	—	600	#147CBD
Small	13px	—	—	—

6. Marquee weight anomaly

[BG25 p.60] specifies marquee button text as “Proxima Heavy”. That weight name appears nowhere else in the guide; §1 lists only Extrabold, Semibold, Regular, Light and Bold.

[TBD: is "Proxima Heavy" a distinct licensed weight, or a synonym for Extrabold?]

7. Authoring restrictions [DS20 p.9]

Content authors may bold and italicise within patterns. Changing size or font is not allowed. Some patterns (Quote, Cliffhanger) permit highlighted words in an alternate color instead of bold.

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Source of truth: plugins/patterson-brand/skills/brand-identity/references/typography.md in the patterson-corp repository.