Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives

Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives(monolisa.dev)

43 points by bebraw 1 day ago | 7 comments

Originally we (Andrey, Marcus, Juho) built MonoLisa in 2020 as we realised there's room for a better monospaced typeface for developers. The key insight was to make the glyphs slightly wider to make more room for design to make letters like m feel less cramped.

Since then we've released a variable v2 (2022) and now we're happy to expand the typeface with a new family called MonoLisa Text. The reasoning was to cover *other* use cases beyond coding with this proportional font.

We hope you give Monolisa a go as there's a free trial to try. We also welcome feedback!

SpyCoder77 2 hours ago |

Absolutely amazing name.

cyphar 2 hours ago |

I'm more of a bitmap font guy (at least, as long as my eyes continue to forgive me for it) but I'm always interested to see what other fonts there are around. It does look quite nice.

I must admit when I ran across the second real paragraph from the main page, I couldn't help but only think more and more about how we will look back on marketing copy like this in a decade from now:

AI assistants produce both code and prose. MonoLisa Text renders long-form explanations with optimal readability, while MonoLisa Code keeps your code crystal clear. The perfect pairing for the AI era. (Under the title "A perfect pairing for the AI era.")

Ignoring the deep pit of sadness I felt when thinking about the incredibly long (and revolutionary) history of typefaces that led us to today for just a moment, I'm honestly curious how effective this marketing is. How many people would assume a font would be suitable for general text but not LLM-generated text and would need to be dissuaded from that notion? I wonder if someone has started selling keyboards that are "perfect for prompting" (but I'm too scared to look at this stage).

gregrobson 1 day ago |

Bought MonoLisa back in 2022, never even considered switching coding typeface since. Before that time I used to switch every 3-6 months.

It's really well balanced easy on the eye.

melody_calling 1 day ago |

I adore MonoLisa, thank you for all the effort that's gone into making it and congratulations on the new release!

roundcan7998 23 hours ago |

Created an account, to come tell you folk, just how much I love Monolisa. Have been using it every since they launched, in both my terminal, and my code editors.

It’s lovely!

editing to add: They even have PPP pricing! Which as someone living in India, I highly appreciate, since it puts a lovely piece of art within reach.

nitinreddy88 1 hour ago | |

20k (30$) for font for someone living in India is too much to ask.

veidr 1 day ago |

I love this font. I think it is probably the only coding font I have ever actually purchased.

geis 1 day ago | |

Same! It's also one of my favorite UNIX puns (up there with pine).