Rich Type Families w/Monospace feature
As a project, I’m putting together a sort of code scrapbook, a small bound book with interesting excerpts of code from my work and small bits of prose about the code. I’ve been looking for font families that could supply both a serif typeface for paragraphs of text, a sans for captions next to the code, and a monospace font for the code itself. As you might expect, the set of font families with a well built monospace cut are very few. In fact I’ve managed to track down just two:
Quadraat:
Serif, Sans, and Monospace
Thesis:
Serif, Sans, and Monospace
Quadraat might be a bit too mannered for this project. Thesis might be a bit too femine. Ideally there would be a monospaced version of Freight Micro since the rest of the family feels just right. I’ll probably end up using Quadraat since the monospace works better in my eyes than TheSans Mono, but I’m still interested to know if there are more families out there with a monospace cut. Anyone know?
9.Sep.2006 8.52pm
>if there are more families out there with a monospace cut
Lucida
9.Sep.2006 8.52pm
I found a couple more options:
Eureka:
Serif, Sans, and Monospace
Fedra:
Serif, Sans, and Monospace
All the settings I can see online of Eureka mono have the letterspacing cranked up which makes me think the wide setting is built into the font. This make me a little suspicious that it won’t look so hot at a more normal letterspacing. Fedra looks more mature, as it should I suppose since it could reasonably be called Eureka 2.0.
What I haven’t been able to find at all is a well executed monospace font derived from a serifed design. Every well done monospace typeface is at heart a sans.
9.Sep.2006 8.55pm
Good call on Lucida. I’d seen the monospace cut but hadn’t remembered it. I must have Lucida fatigue though from staring at it all day in OS X.
9.Sep.2006 9.02pm
I found a monospace type derived from a serif design. There’s even a small caps cut.
Monox from DS Type
(can’t link straight to the font itself since they use flash. Damn you, flash.)
9.Sep.2006 9.15pm
Nexus
10.Sep.2006 12.33am
Nimbus Sans, considered by some the best digital cut of Helvetica, comes in a monospaced version.
11.Sep.2006 4.35am
(Paul, the best digital cut of Helvetica is Linotype’s Helvetica World, whose Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew character sets were redrawn by John Hudson; it may only have four weights, but they’ll golden ;-) )