A system for Font discovery and matching
Baseline is a web app for finding the right font without burning an afternoon on it. Instead of leaving designers to scroll through hundreds of typefaces, it recommends fonts that fit the project, explains why each one was chosen, and helps narrow the search to four or five strong options.
If you don't even know where to start, you simply describe your project, and Baseline turns that brief into a curated set of recommendations.
Role
Product designer
Project status
Concept
Timeline
1 months
Year
2026
Tools
Figma & Rive
The name stuck the moment I thought of it. In typography, the baseline is the invisible line every letter sits on the thing that makes type feel aligned instead of chaotic. It felt like the perfect metaphor for a tool whose job is bringing order to font chaos.
I also designed the logo myself, using the project as an opportunity to explore logo design alongside the product.
P.S this was the first design made with Spiral UI
Problem
The problem underneath the problem
Building a font recommendation tool wasn't the hard part. The real challenge was deciding how it should make recommendations people could trust.
I didn't want to invent arbitrary scoring rules, and I'm not a typographer with years of pairing expertise to encode. Instead, I focused on making every recommendation explainable. Designers don't just want suggestions—they want to know why a font fits their project.
After exploring different approaches with Claude and a developer friend, I separated the font library from the recommendation engine. Google Fonts provides the catalogue, while an AI-assisted system interprets the project brief, evaluates typography characteristics, and recommends the best matches with a short explanation for each.
I also limited results to four or five fonts. Instead of overwhelming users with endless choices, Baseline prioritizes a small set of high-quality recommendations that make decisions faster and more confident.
UI sample
Baseline designs
Conclusion
What was learnt
Baseline became more than a font recommendation tool it became the first real test of Spiral UI, my own design system.
Designing an entire product with components I created instead of starting from scratch quickly exposed where the system was consistent, where components needed refinement, and where interaction patterns could be improved.
Building with your own design system is different from building one in isolation. You discover its strengths, but more importantly, you uncover the assumptions and gaps that only appear during real product work.
Baseline helped refine Spiral UI just as much as Spiral UI helped shape Baseline.
If you're building products that requires thoughtful design, I'd love to talk.