Big Shoulders Inline
Type with Purpose
Good typography guides attention, improves understanding, and makes communication effortless.
The Anatomy of a Typeface
By FontSide · June 2026
Every typeface is a system of decisions — about stroke contrast, x-height, spacing, and rhythm. The best ones feel invisible: you stop seeing the letters and start hearing the voice behind them. That transparency is the hardest thing to design.
A high x-height opens up the counters and makes small text breathe. Tight tracking pulls a headline together; loose tracking gives a caption room to exhale. None of these choices are accidents — they are arguments about how reading should feel.
Uppercase
Lowercase
Numerals
Symbols
Package Manager
The recommended way to use fonts in modern web projects.
1. Install Package
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/big-shoulders-inline 2. Import in App
import '@fontsource-variable/big-shoulders-inline/wght.css'; 3. CSS Usage
body {
font-family: "Big Shoulders Inline Variable", system-ui;
} Google Fonts CDN
Use Google's CDN to embed the fonts directly via HTML.
HTML <head>
<!-- Please select at least one weight and style --> Fontsource CDN
Skip the build step by adding this directly to your global CSS file.
Global CSS
/* big-shoulders-inline-latin-wght-normal */
@font-face {
font-family: "Big Shoulders Inline Variable";
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
font-weight: 100 900;
src: url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/big-shoulders-inline:vf@latest/latin-wght-normal.woff2)
format("woff2-variations");
} Background & Story
Big Shoulders is a superfamily of condensed American Gothic variable fonts, created for the Chicago Design System, and the citizens of Chicago. The family's tall, sans-serif forms are based in Chicago's multiple histories in railway transport, public political action, and dance.
Big Shoulders is used in the Chicago Design System as the primary typeface to identify Chicago and its citizens allowing the Chicagoans to speak with one consistent typographic voice.
Big Shoulders Stencil explores Chicago's histories in work and protest, and is designed to apply the Chicagoan voice to those uses.
Big Shoulders Inline formalizes a local typographic vernacular for celebration, taking its hypnotic inline design from Black Chicagoans' House parties, and local LGBTQ dance events, a tradition beginning in the early 1980s.
To contribute, see github.com/xotypeco/big_shoulders.
Tags & Moods
Subsets
Install
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/big-shoulders-inline Designed by
Patric King
Links
License
OFL-1.1