Berkeley Mono is a love letter to the golden era of computing. The era that gave rise to a generation of people who celebrated automation and reveled in the joy of computing, when transistors replaced cogs, and machine-readable typefaces were developed, for when humans and machines truly interfaced on an unprecedented scale.
Berkeley Mono wears a UNIX T-shirt and aspires to be etched on control panels in black synthetic lacquer. It is Adrian Frutiger visits Bell Labs. It is Gene Kranz’s command. It operates with calibrated precision and has a datasheet.
Berkeley Mono is a typeface for professionals.
By software engineers, for software engineers.
Berkeley Mono is thoroughly tested and has written production code during its entire development cycle. Engineered for reading and writing code, Berkeley Mono has excellent legibility, distinct but not distracting glyphs and a comfortable line-height. It is fitted with care to make sure it can perform as well as proportional typefaces whilst being 100% monospaced.
It’s boring. It’s good.
Berkeley Mono coalesces the objectivity of machine-readable typefaces of the 70’s while simultaneously retaining the humanist sans-serif qualities. Inspired by the legendary typefaces of the past, Berkeley Mono offers exceptional straightforwardness and clarity in its form. It’s purpose is to make the user productive and get out of the way.
There is nothing like it.
Some say Berkeley Mono evokes a warm and fuzzy feeling of interacting with vintage technologies. The glow of cathode ray tubes, the wonderful tactility of a well made rotary encoder, and the calm of static user interfaces. Perhaps. But, Berkeley Mono is functional first. It doubles down on reliability of existing forms and refines it. It is comforting and yet stern, disciplined yet easy, regimented yet flexible. It is old school, understated and unfasionable. May be it is timeless.
Berkeley Mono truly shines in use cases where legibility is important. Want to write a user manual or a movie script? It is fantastic for that. Berkeley Mono’s design has a careful balance between letter-spacing and monospaced fitting. It makes reading long form prose effortless.
It will perform just as well for designing Submarine EXIT signs as for precision japanese restaurant menu. Genetic sequencies look great. Nuclear
