IBM Plex
| Company type | Typeface / Font family |
|---|---|
| Industry | Typography, Graphic design |
| Founded | 2017 |
| Founder | Mike Abbink |
| Headquarters | Armonk , United States |
| Products | IBM Plex Sans, IBM Plex Sans Condensed, IBM Plex Mono, IBM Plex Serif, IBM Plex Sans Hebrew, IBM Plex Sans Thai, IBM Plex Sans Thai Looped, IBM Plex Sans Devanagari, IBM Plex Sans Arabic, IBM Plex Sans Korean, IBM Plex Sans Japanese |
| Owner | IBM |
| Website | www |
IBM Plex is an open source font superfamily created by Mike Abbink at IBM in partnership with Bold Monday, designed to reflect IBM’s design ethos and function as the company’s global brand typeface. After more than five decades, Plex succeeded Helvetica, significantly reducing licensing expenses.
The initial release, version 1.0, comprised four distinct typefaces, each available in eight weights ranging from Thin to Bold, accompanied by true italic styles.
- IBM Plex Sans – This grotesque sans-serif draws inspiration from Franklin Gothic. Alternative sans-serif designs were dismissed for appearing too soft (humanist), too rigid (geometric), or overly refined (neo-grotesque). Notable characteristics include angled terminals, a double-storey 'g', and a horizontal baseline stroke on the numeral 1. On April 7, 2019, IBM Plex Sans Variable, a variable font, was introduced.
- IBM Plex Sans Condensed – A narrower adaptation of IBM Plex Sans.
- IBM Plex Mono – A monospaced variant derived from IBM Plex Sans, featuring italics inspired by the Italic 12 typeface from the IBM Selectric typewriter, particularly visible in characters such as
i,j,t, andx. - IBM Plex Serif – A transitional serif influenced by Bodoni and Janson. Other serif styles were rejected for being excessively humanist or unsuitable for extended text (slab-serif). It integrates Bodoni elements like ball terminals and rectangular serifs.
Unicode coverage
At version 1.0, the IBM Plex family supports over 100 languages, covering most that utilize the Latin script (including Vietnamese) and the Cyrillic script (with the exception of IBM Plex Sans Condensed). Version 3.0 of IBM Plex Sans expanded support to include monotonic Greek. Additional fonts without italic variants extend compatibility to other scripts:
- IBM Plex Sans Hebrew – Designed for the Hebrew script.
- IBM Plex Sans Thai – Supports the informal loopless style of the Thai script; released in October 2018.
- IBM Plex Sans Thai Looped – Covers the formal looped variant of Thai; launched in April 2019.
- IBM Plex Sans Devanagari – Provides support for the Devanagari script; released December 2018.
- IBM Plex Sans Arabic – Caters to the Arabic script; introduced March 2019.
- IBM Plex Sans Korean – Supports the Hangul writing system; released June 2020.
- IBM Plex Sans Japanese – Covers the Japanese writing system, released July 2021.
Mike Abbink and Bold Monday continue development on additional scripts including CJK, Bengali, Tamil, and Kannada.
The typeface also includes commonly used mathematical and currency symbols (such as the Bitcoin ₿), ligatures like fi and fl, plus stylistic alternates for characters including a, g, and zero.
Certain symbols remain unavailable in IBM Plex Sans Condensed, Mono, and Serif versions—these include the generic currency sign (¤), prime (′), and double prime (″). Mike Abbink has confirmed intentions to add support for the Mathematical Operators Unicode block as well as symbols employed in the APL programming language.
The glyphs representing the FCC (#EFCC) and CE marking (#ECE0) logos are encoded within the Private Use Area. Prior to version 1.0, five IBM logos—including solid, 8-bar, and I-Bee-M designs—were also encoded as glyphs.
Licensing
The IBM Plex typeface files are distributed solely under the SIL Open Font License (SIL OFL). From August 9 to 21, 2018, these fonts were temporarily offered under a dual-license arrangement that included the Apache License, but this was later withdrawn due to concerns regarding the Apache License's appropriateness for font distribution. Although the SIL OFL is a free and open-source license, compiling the fonts from their source code necessitates the use of proprietary software, specifically FontLab Studio.
Bold Monday supplies complementary web development resources in CSS, SCSS, and JavaScript formats under the Apache License. Additionally, font bundles can be obtained through npm.
The IBM Plex trademark and name are protected under the SIL OFL and have been officially registered since December 2017.
See also
- Open-source Unicode typefaces
- Cantarell, which served as the default in earlier GNOME releases
- Droid (typeface), utilized as default fonts in early Android versions
- Noto fonts, adopted as default in more recent Android releases
- Open Sans, derived from Droid Sans
- Roboto, the current default for newer Android editions
- National Fonts, offering free Thai typefaces
- PT Fonts, providing free Russian fonts
- STIX Fonts project, designed for scientific and engineering applications
External links
- IBM Plex on GitHub
- Official IBM Plex website
- IBM Plex Sans available on Google Fonts
- IBM Plex Sans Condensed available on Google Fonts
- IBM Plex Mono available on Google Fonts
- IBM Plex Serif available on Google Fonts