Novice
Usage of type doesn’t follow some basic best practices in terms of legibility, hierarchy, contrast, size, line length, line spacing, padding, etc. Font choice could be improved either for legibility, consistency, or branding reasons.
Competent
Design makes good use of type, with attention paid to legibility, hierarchy, contrast, sizing, and spacing. However, the font choices are “safe” in some way—it’s not clear that bolder choices and combinations were considered to find a typographic voice that works with the product.
Proficient
The type is well used and also well considered to align with the brand voice of the product while maintaining clear usability. Multiple typographic styles have been tried until an appropriate combination has been found with a good “fit” to the design.
Expert
Micro-typographic details are all carefully considered throughout. Attention is paid to treatment of proper punctuation marks, alignment is adjusted for tabular information, text grades are considered for “knocked out” text, alignments are optically correctly, fallback fonts are considered for web use, language support is considered as needed, etc.
