Typography

Yulu’s new Typeface

I led the research for a new typeface that better reflected Yulu’s evolving brand. One that is modern, mobile-friendly, and full of motion. I evaluated and audited 40 typefaces, and then we landed on a typeface that now anchors the product’s visual language across all platforms.

What is it?

A redesign of Yulu’s onboarding experience in response to rapid growth in 2019. As more users joined and new services were added, the existing flow needed to better guide users, explain how Yulu works, and help them get started smoothly.

Roles

The challenge

Typography, for a mobility brand like Yulu that interacts with users across platforms plays a crucial role in shaping perception. Redefined design language, meant needing a typeface that could unify our identity across all channels. The challenge was to find a font that reflected Yulu’s evolving brand tone, modern, approachable and future-forward. The search involved evaluating and finding a typeface this is consistent and scalable in a growth environment.

The approach

The first step was conducting audit of all typefaces currently in use across Yulu’s ecosystem. This revealed a lack of consistency, with a total of 5 different fonts used across various channels.

The second step involved reviewing research papers to build a strong case for why typography matters. Next, I analyzed the typefaces adopted by design leaders we identified to benchmark best practices.

In parallel, I began evaluating typefaces suggested by the team, along with those that met criteria. This resulted in a detailed audit and testing phase, ultimately leading us to identify the one typeface.

Audit & Research

First thing first was the audit of current typefaces currently in use across Yulu’s ecosystem. This revealed a lack of consistency, with a total of five different fonts used across various channels:

1. Circular Standard — used in presentations and parts of the website
2. Avenir — used within the customer app
3. Open Sans — also found in the customer app
4. Heebo — used on sections of the website
5. Mulish — scattered usage in some web components

Secondly, I reviewing research papers to build a strong case for why typography matters:

1. How Typography Affects Conversions and UX — Tommy Walker
2. Effect of Font Type on Memory for Instruction — Sally McDonnell
3. An Event-Related Potential study of letter spacing during visual word recognition — Elizabeth Sacchi, Ryan Mirchin, Sarah Laszlo

Evaluation of Typefaces

The audit of existing typefaces across Yulu’s ecosystem revealed team preference for Circular Std. However, licensing restrictions from Monotype made it unviable for long-term use. This led me to expand the search by evaluating typefaces used by leading design teams—such as Cereal by Airbnb, Netflix Sans by Netflix, etc.—in order to benchmark what makes those typefaces great and what to look for in terms of quality, scalability, and brand alignment.

Evaluation methods

1. Suits Yulu’s tone
2. Legible, readable, contrasting
3. Il1 test (capital I, lowercase L, and number 1 test)
4. 8 and B test
5. Multi-language support
6. Contrast and weight range

Typefaces evaluated

Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible, Bitter, Raleway, Thempos Text, Kulturista, Chap, LL Circular, Heebo, Open Sans, Avenir, Mulish, TT Commons, GreyCliff, Visby Round, Lufga, Jeko, Haffer, GT Haptik, Polly Rounded, Bariol, Gilroy, Pacaembu, Aeonik, Averta Std, Poppins, Satoshi, Inter, Duplet, Suisse Int’l, Gilroy, Duplet Open.

Decisions

We as a team voted on all the typefaces and finalized 3 fonts we will evaluate further:

1. Greycliff
2. Satoshi
3. Duplet Open

Final Font

Why Satoshi?

1. Free
2. Modern and Aesthetic
3. Multi-weight
4. Brand alignment
5. Web optimized
6. Team vote

Conclusion

This typographic journey wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration and support of my team—Arpitha, Vaishnavi, Amitesh, Atima, and Aryan. I’m excited to see the typeface come to life across Yulu’s entire ecosystem and contribute to a more cohesive and scalable brand experience.

P.S. It’s already live.