USC Font Guide: Adobe Caslon Pro, National 2 and Source Sans 3

USC’s typography guidance names Adobe Caslon Pro and National 2 for its academic identity. The page describes an enterprise National 2 license introduced in February 2024 for faculty, staff and student workers. That institutional access arrangement does not make National 2 a public free font download or identify every historical USC graphic.

The USC page shows a selected National 2 range rather than unrestricted use of the entire extended family. It excludes the thin and very heavy extremes and the Narrow, Condensed and Compressed variants. It also names Source Sans 3 as a digital substitution for National 2. Follow the documented selection when making official material instead of assuming every similarly named cut belongs in the system.

Source Sans 3 is available here as a specimen and is the substitution actually named by USC. Compare a page title, an introductory paragraph and a small schedule label. Keep the same content across samples so that line length and hierarchy remain visible. Source Serif 4 and Lora are independent serif comparisons; neither should be described as USC’s Adobe Caslon Pro.

Give the event title enough room to wrap naturally and put the date in a predictable place. Use a concise summary before the detailed abstract. Separate the presenter biography from registration information with spacing and headings rather than a third decorative family. A strong academic page makes the topic and attendance details clear before the reader encounters supporting institutional marks.