Monospace Type Category

Video Transcription

Welcome back to our short talks on The Classifications of Typography here at Noble Desktop.

The type category we are looking at in this video is Monospace.

The development of Monospaced fonts is directly related to the advent of the typewriter which was invented in 1857.

A monospaced font also called a fixed-width, fixed-pitch, or on-proportional font, is a typeface whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space.

Most other fonts contain variable-width characters and variable-width spacing.

Monospace typefaces are not the prettiest but are definitely legible and really kind of genius considering the major boost of productivity that the typewriter provided people at its inception.

While there are quite a few monospaced typefaces out in the world; their use in the visual design arena is somewhat limited. One reason for this is because monospace type is designed for use in coding applications and for spreadsheets to get numbers to line up across multiple lines and columns.

Nevertheless here are a few examples of the monospace type in design that are worthy of mentioning.

The first one is a fun retro example. This is from the book Arcade Game Typography: The Art of Pixel Type by celebrated typeface designer Toshi Omagari.

The monospace category lends itself well to the use of video game text with its pixel art style and techy feel.

This Umbrant Instant Coffee packaging mockup uses the Umbrant Mono typeface. It exemplifies the concept of quick clean and uncomplicated and employs a generic look for this instant coffee brand.

Those of you who love graphic design history will want to know about these people, the fonts, and the magazine that they created.

In 1984 around the time Apple computers introduced the Macintosh, Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko (both of European descent) and their small team, joined forces to create the groundbreaking magazine and independent type foundry, both named Emigre.

Emigre magazine was known for creating some of the very first digital layouts and typeface designs. The magazine was published quarterly from 1984 until 2005 and was devoted to visual communication and design discourse. The magazine featured the new cutting-edge type designs by Zuzana Licko, which as it turned out were well received by the graphic design community. Thus the Emigre type foundry was born.

This handful of Emigre typeface examples is quite exceptional using the principles of monospace typeface design in their construction.

This poster for “Down to Earth Wine Tasting” uses the Emigre Base Monospace typeface, to promote this UK event for wine importers. As the event was scheduled to take place during the coronavirus outbreak the dates are left as to be confirmed…

The friendly, fresh, playful, and modern signage for the European clothing store casa cosi, uses 2 weights of the platelet typeface.

It would seem that the letter i has been modified so that the dot over the letter is moved closer to the stem, to make better use of the limited vertical space on the awning.

Finally, German sign-making and advertising company Hruby has been around since the early 1900s. The current visual identity was designed in 2006 and uses the ChollaSans font by Emigre to promote their automobile ad offerings.

Next up in our line-up of the classifications of typography we’ll be looking at the handwritten category.