There is something quirky, mechanical, and utilitarian about monospaced typefaces and I’ve admired them for years. It must have started when I was a young kid, reading weekly church bulletins that were made using an IBM Selectric typewriter.
The IBM Selectric Typewriter (image courtesy
I remember once going to the church office in the middle of the week with my dad and the secretary was typing away for the Sunday bulletin. She wouldn’t let me touch the typewriter (a wise woman, indeed) but she let me watch her as she skillfully composed the page that would later be Xeroxed or possibly even mimeographed.
Seeing her swap out the “golf ball” type element with IBM Script to add personality for dull reports and announcements fascinated my hyperactive mind. I certainly didn’t know it then; but 30 years later, I would study page composition and fonts as part of my job and IBM Script would become one of my favorite typefaces of all time.
IBM “Selectric” Type Samples (image courtesy Nick Sherman)
Recently, Roel Nieskens (of Wakamai Fondue fame) started a Twitter thread asking for coding fonts with personality and suggestions poured in with examples of fonts with fresh takes on the monospaced genre.
Roel’s tweet that started it all
After joking with Roel that he should write a blog post from the thread, I started a list of monospaced fonts that have a design aesthetic that I like. The list quickly grew from 15, to 45, to 70 and continues to grow. But now I guess the joke’s on me, since here I am writing the post…
There are hundreds (if not thousands) of monospaced typefaces out there, so this is not a comprehensive list. Most articles on coding fonts focus on technical details, so this post is specifically focused on the aesthetic design of monospaced fonts.
The visual and spacing differences between proportional and monospaced fonts
I’ve chosen to only showcase typefaces that have both roman and italic styles because I prefer them. I’m also not getting into the arguments about coding ligatures or power-line features—I simply have no need for them.
There are also many other typefaces with the feeling of monospace that are not rigidly fixed-width. These “Faux-Monos” have the appearance of monos, but allow wide or narrow characters to be different widths. I personally love a lot of these, so I’ll likely write a separate post about them in the future.