Helping designers find font pairings faster
Overview
I designed and built Paired, a Figma plugin that helps designers find font pairings faster. Using AI tools to accelerate development, I shipped a working plugin in one week.
Tools
Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor
Team
Solo project
Timeline
1 week
Status
Context
Font pairing shouldn't take hours
Existing sites like Fontjoy, Fontpair and other plugins focus on completeness, not speed. I wanted a tool that helped designers go from zero ideas to font pairings fast.
Fontjoy
Fontpair
Research + Strategy
Finding the real problem
I used Perplexity to explore designers’ pain points across forums and communities. The research revealed that many designers waste entire afternoons scrolling and second-guessing combinations.
Perplexity sources
This validation shaped the plugin's core philosophy: good enough to get moving.
Planning
Roadmapping the plugin
Claude helped me think through the roadmap and reasoning. I used it to outline development steps, anticipate edge cases like Figma's font API limitations, and stress-test my pairing logic before building anything.
Claude conversation
Key decision: fonts broken into four categories and smart defaults over endless options.
Development
From concept to working plugin
Cursor file
The challenge: Figma's API doesn't expose font characteristics, so I built a workaround using google fonts.
Final Plugin
Fast font pairing in Figma
Paired combines exploration with recommended pairings, reducing friction and decision fatigue by adding fonts to figma canvas with a single click.
Reflection
Designing with AI as a partner
The AI tools made plugin development much more approachable. Coming with a clear idea and technical background were helpful for making good decisions and staying in control of the development.