Our Favorite Monospaced Fonts For Logo and Branding Projects

In this Issue...

• Fonts of the Week: Noto Sans Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Xanh Mono, Space Mono
• Design Idea: Low Code/No Code
• Color Inspiration: Tegenungan Waterfall, Indonesia

Fonts of the Week

All About Monospaced Fonts

We have covered monospaced fonts many times in this newsletter. Some are a part of an extensive font family, some standing strong on their own. One thing is for sure: Many of you love monospaced fonts because some of these issues are our most popular!

Noto Sans Mono

We covered Noto recently. It is a joint project by several big tech companies (Google, Adobe, and Monotype) to eliminate “Tofu,” which is the box that shows up when there is a missing character. Taking the neutral tone and style elements from the Noto Sans, Noto Sans Mono is neutral and inviting. The monospaced version of Noto Sans is also available. It has several weights and italics for you to use. And you can toggle ligature if you need to. 

Details

• Humanist sans serif influence (calligraphy)

• Numeric “0” with crossbars to differentiate from letter “O”

 

 

IBM Plex Mono 

Like Noto Sans Mono, IBM Plex Mono  benefits from being in a large font family: it has several weights and italics. Plex is extensive because IBM originally commissioned it as its brand font. IBM wanted to illustrate the themes of humanity and machine. The font mirrored this brand vision by having neutral and balanced weights with more friendly italics. Compared with Noto Sans Mono, IBM Plex Mono feels more “rigid” with serifs on the letters.

Details

• Curved tails in “l,” “z,” and “Q” for monospace italic

• Dotted numeric “0” to differentiate from the letter “O”

Xanh Mono

Xanh Mono (issue 36) is a unique monospaced font. It spices up the idea of monospaced fonts with its pronounced serifs and ball terminals that I haven’t seen in others. It brings an extra sense of elegance and grandeur to designs as a display font for headers. As a coding font, I think it’s an acquired taste. Because of its large serifs, I find Xanh Mono uncomfortable to stare at them for hours when coding. However, if you want to spice up your editor, give it a try.

Details

• Transitional serifs with ball terminals 

• Only one weight with true italic 

 

 

Space Mono

While monospaced fonts sound techy and nerdy, they also appear intimate and friendly in specific contexts. Reasons could be the extra comfort to our eyes brought by its fixed width or remembrance of memories past when we click-clacked our thoughts to our loved ones.  Either way, monospaced fonts are having a comeback. People love using them in their brands.

Space Mono is an excellent example of this. It is a cute, eclectic, friendly monospace font combining geometric perfection with the human touch. The shapes of the letters are very geometric but with a funky calligraphic influence of grotesque sans serifs. Human touch like these makes Space Mono perfect for friendly tech brands. 

Details

• Geometric, almost retro-looking letters with funky calligraphic influence 

• Dotted numeric “0” to differentiate from “O”

 

 

Design Idea of the Week 

Marketing as Engineering: Our Experiment with Low Code/ No Code

 Low Code tools allow users to build powerful applications without much coding. This week, we’ll dig a bit into the theme of Low Code. Low Code Development: A Short History goes over the history of Low Code with examples from the past. I learned a lot from this article --  Did you know that low-code goes three decades back? 

Also, if you want to know how we built Coding Font with Low Code, we wrote a blog post about our process working with no code.

Color Inspiration of the Week

Tegenungan Waterfall, Indonesia

Please enjoy the colors from this beautiful calming waterfall from Indonesia this week!

Clear Water #E3E9F0 | Light Leaf #ACC987 | Dark Leaf ##668251| Trunk #8C756F

 

Typography Jargon Buster!

Monospace

First seen around 1950

A monospaced font is fixed width, meaning all its letters and characters have the same width and occupy the same horizontal space. Monospace fonts are used in code editors and science periodicals, in addition to many others.

 

Creative Prompt 

Create a quick project with one of these monospaced fonts!

Thank You

Thank you for reading and hanging out here this week! Please find the fonts here: Noto Sans Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Xanh Mono, Space Mono. See you next week!