Weight

How heavily a letterform sits on the page. Weight is voice: the same word whispers in light and insists in bold.

Weight is typography's volume control, but it carries tone as well as loudness. Light weights read as air and expense; regular is the speaking voice; bold insists. A family's weights are the same argument at different pressures, and choosing among them is casting.

The classic error is reaching for bold whenever something matters, until a page is all shout. Emphasis spends better in other currencies first: position, space, size. We hold heavy weights in reserve the way a calm speaker holds volume, so that when bold finally arrives, it lands.