I’m obsessed with typefaces and fonts 1.

My programming productivity is irrationally dependent on the font I pick for my IDE. I have spent unhealthy amounts of time experimenting and trying different fonts for programming.

I usually prefer a monospaced font and I’ve bounced between Inconsolata and Consolas in the past – both truly beautiful typefaces.

Recently though, a design director at Instacart shared this link on the laws of UX (a fantastic read btw).

But —hot damn— I was smitten after looking at that website. The font used there was GORGEOUS! I knew it was monospaced just from looking at it. I didn’t get past the first law, without first finding out which font was being used.

IBM Plex Mono used on lawsofux.com

[Image: lawsofux.com]

Thus I stumbled upon my new programming font – IBM Plex Mono. I don’t make a font change in my IDE that casually, without first putting it through the paces.

I give it a glowing recommendation for your IDE. There’s an interesting back story behind the making of the font on Medium too.

Btw, just changing the font is not enough – you have to pick the right size and line spacing (I’ve found a size of 15 and line-spacing of 1.15 works best for me).

Download IBM Plex Mono absolutely for free.

  1. Did you know – fonts and typefaces aren’t necessarily interchangeable. You use “typeface” when you’d use “song” (e.g. “I love that song/typeface …”), and “font” when you’d use “track” ("… so I’m going to buy the track/font for it"). ↩︎