Last summer, Craig wrote a post on the best monospaced fonts for programmers. Monospaced fonts are not just for developers, designers can have fun with them, too. So today, as it’s Font Friday, we have another handpicked selection of fonts for your designing pleasure. But first, if you’re new to typography here’s a brief explanation of what distinguishes this type category from others.
A monospaced or fixed-width font is a font, where each letter occupies the same amount of space. These fonts were originally designed for typewriters and have quite a distinct look about them. Courier is undoubtedly one of the most well-known monospaced fonts, particularly for web designers as it’s one of the web safe fonts. In the example below, you can see that each letter on the top line is the same width. The letter l takes up the same room horizontally as the letter o. In the case of Times New Roman, each letter has a different width.
So let’s get on with it, here’s a bunch of good-looking monospaced fonts that are free to download. As always check the license on each for full info on how you can use the font.
Chica Modern
Future Fixed-Width by W.S.I. Fonts
Monofur by Tobias B. Koehler
Unispace by Ray Larabie
B.P. Mono (there is also an italic and bold version of this)
Newport Gothic by Roger White
Monospace Typewriter by Manfred Klein Fonteria Fonts
Andale Mono by Microsoft
Anonymous by Mark Simonson
Onuava by The Scriptorium
Jennifer Farley is a designer, illustrator and design instructor based in Ireland. She writes about design and illustration on her blog at Laughing Lion Design.