Describe a text style as a complete set of choices
The Carbon Design System’s own typography overview explains type tokens as preset combinations of settings such as size, weight and line height, calibrated for IBM Plex. It distinguishes product-oriented and more expressive editorial contexts. This demonstrates why a family name alone is not a full style specification. For your own guide, record the family and exact style alongside size, line height, spacing, intended role and the situations in which it should be used.
Build a role sheet using the words people will actually publish
Choose a small set of roles such as article title, reading paragraph, caption, label and code example. Give each one a realistic sample, including a long heading and a caption with a name and date. State which styles can be combined on one page and which belong to a different context. Keep font choice separate from the text’s structural role: making a sentence large does not decide whether it is a heading. The font pairing chart can help explore combinations before you document the final choices.
Include resource access and a fallback example
Record the exact font resource, release and permitted acquisition route used by the project, then show what happens when that font is unavailable. Identify approved substitutes deliberately instead of leaving another editor to guess. Inter and IBM Plex Mono are real independent specimens for a text-and-code exercise here; this pairing is not a reproduction of Carbon’s entire system. The homepage generator for copyable lettering changes Unicode characters; it does not create named text styles, install fonts or replace a team’s typography specification.
Your questions, answered.
Is naming a font enough for a style guide?
A usable guide also records the selected style, size, line height, spacing, role and relevant resource access, with examples of actual content.
Should every text role use the same settings?
Roles need to be considered together, but a caption, article title and code sample have different jobs. Document the chosen relationships rather than relying on one enlarged alphabet specimen.
Sources & background
Sources supporting this page’s explanations. Practical examples are our editorial suggestions.