Typography

Headings

A successful type hierarchy establishes the order of importance of elements on a page. Consistent scaling, weights, and capitalization are used to create distinction between heading levels and provide users with familiar focus points when scanning text.

Web headings

At screen widths of 600px and below, the Display heading and Headings 1-4 drop in size. Heading 5 remains consistent at all screen widths.

Display

Heading 1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Heading 4

Heading 5

HTML code snippet

<h1 class="superheading">Display</h1>
<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<h5>Heading 5</h5>

<!--
Example of a non heading element:
<p class="h1">A non-heading element</p>
-->

Specs

Heading Specs Responsive behavior at < 601px
Display Avenir Next Regular, 48px / 60px Drops to Heading 1
Heading 1 Avenir Next Demi Bold, 34px / 42px Drops to Heading 2
Heading 2 Avenir Next Demi Bold, 26px / 32px Drops to Heading 3
Heading 3 Avenir Next Regular, 22px / 28px Drops to Heading 4
Heading 4 Avenir Next Medium, 18px / 22px Drops to 16px / 18px
Heading 5 Avenir Next Demi Bold, 14px / 18px, All caps, 1px letter spacing No change

Variations

The heading variations below have specific use cases.

Meta header

The meta header is typically used for listing categories on pages like the blog page.

Office of Research Publication
Policy and compliance
Published

HTML code snippet

<div class="m-meta-header">
    <div class="m-meta-header__item-group">
      <div class="m-meta-header__item">
          
          Office of Research Publication
      </div>
      <div class="m-meta-header__item">
          
          Policy and compliance
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="m-meta-header__item">
        <span class="a-date">
            Published
            <span class="datetime"><time class="datetime_date" datetime="2024-09-28T00:00:00">SEP 28, 2024</time>
            </span>
        </span>
    </div>
</div>

Specs

  • Avenir Next Medium, 18px
  • View a list of icons. Icon height is constrained to 19px.

Eyebrow heading

The eyebrow heading is an additional label that can be used to support the main H1 heading on a page, provide additional context, or orientation when necessary. Use the eyebrow heading to label page headings that are part of a larger group of related pages, or when additional context can help orient the user to the page’s purpose.

The eyebrow heading is secondary to and serves to support the main page heading. So it should be concise and shorter than the main page heading.

An example of the eyebrow heading can be found on the Buying a House journey pages.

eyebrow heading
Heading 1

HTML code snippet

<div class="h5">eyebrow heading</div> <div class="h1">Heading 1</div>

Specs

  • Avenir Next Demi Bold
  • 14px / 18px, 1px letter spacing
  • All caps
  • <601px wide: No change

Slug heading

Slug headings are used to call attention to and lead content on sidebars and prefooters, inset modules, and inset email modules.

Slug heading

HTML code snippet

<header class="m-slug-header">
    <h2 class="m-slug-header__heading">
        Slug heading
    </h2>
</header>

Specs

  • Slug title: H5

  • 5px thick CFPB Green top border that spans the length of the title

  • 1px thick Gray 50 top border that spans the width of the module or column

Guidelines

Content

  • Headings should be sentence case.
  • Do not include punctuation in headings.
  • Keep headings to one line on desktop when possible.

Spacing

Refer to the Guidelines section of the Fonts page for information about heading spacing.

Accessibility

Since categories can be repetitive, we suggest placing a label with .u-visually-hidden prior to the headings with icons to add more context for screen readers.

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