Tunes existing type to premium optical standards - tracking and line-height computed from font size instead of set as constants, the two-cut text/display split, the 600-weight ceiling, and the tuned-face spend ladder. Use when someone asks "why do my headlines look loose", "what letter-spacing should a 64px headline use", "my display type reads like an enlarged paragraph", "is bold too heavy for headings", "tune the tracking and leading on this hero", or when a layout uses a good typeface that still looks default. Do NOT use to choose typefaces or build the modular type scale itself - use typography-system instead; for animated type, use kinetic-typography; for page-level emphasis and layout, use visual-hierarchy.
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name: optical-typography-craft
description: Tunes existing type to premium optical standards - tracking and line-height computed from font size instead of set as constants, the two-cut text/display split, the 600-weight ceiling, and the tuned-face spend ladder. Use when someone asks "why do my headlines look loose", "what letter-spacing should a 64px headline use", "my display type reads like an enlarged paragraph", "is bold too heavy for headings", "tune the tracking and leading on this hero", or when a layout uses a good typeface that still looks default. Do NOT use to choose typefaces or build the modular type scale itself - use typography-system instead; for animated type, use kinetic-typography; for page-level emphasis and layout, use visual-hierarchy.
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# optical-typography-craft
The fastest single tell that no designer touched a page is default type settings: zero tracking on a 56px headline and paragraph line-height on display text. Fonts are spaced for body sizes, so at display scale the sidebearings loosen optically and the headline dissolves into an enlarged paragraph instead of fusing into one sculptural lockup. This skill is the tuning pass that runs after typography-system has chosen the faces - it changes numbers, never fonts.
## Operating procedure
Work the steps in order: size inventory before tracking, tracking before leading, leading before weight. Every table below keys on the size list produced in Step 1, so a wrong inventory poisons every number after it.
### Step 1: Gather the size inventory and the charter
Elicit exactly these inputs before computing anything:
1. **Stack** - the type stack in use, and whether it ships text/display cuts or a variable optical-size axis.
2. **Sizes** - every rendered size in the artifact. Grep the CSS or list the styles; do not sample.
3. **Current values** - tracking, line-height, and weight per size as shipped.
4. **Charter** - the client charter's weight discipline. Paste the charter block if one exists. If the client has a charter but the foundations pack is not installed, elicit the needed values directly and label them provisional. If no charter exists at all, halt and route to premium-design-foundations - never substitute worked-example values. Tuning without a charter enforces house taste instead of the brand's.
5. **Medium** - web, native, or print; rendering targets shift the fine end of the numbers.
If a value is unknown, measure it, do not guess. If a number must be estimated anyway, label it a guess and move on.
… install to load the full skill