Thanks, added to my set of “wonky” fonts, prepared for whenever I’m feeling whimsical, which, for my co-workers, is sadly half the time I am working. So far it has:
Monaco or its free alternative Monego, though calling it “wonky” stretches the definition
Of these, Cascadia Code has even become my default font, alongside DejaVu Sans Mono.
I find that each character has a distinct personality in such fonts, which makes code easier to read (in my eye at least). Also, due to their wonkiness, the spacing between characters is consistent.
And there is less chance of mistaking one character for another. Just yesterday, it took me a second to figure out where to break the variable name Step1Of4, rendered in the stock DejaVu Sans Mono font - at step 1 or at step 10.
Agave is great - I’ve used it from time to time and love it.
For more weird stuff (™️) see:
Victor Mono which makes italics cursive. This is my current daily driver.
Anomaly Mono which takes lots of creative liberties with what latin script letters are allowed to look like - the only glyph I straight up dislike here is capital M, everything else is really pleasant and this was once my daily driver.
Maple Mono, which takes a lot of inspiration from various fonts in your list and tries to be a buttery-smooth sans-serif monospace font with optional ligatures. It’s my current alternate font when I need a palette cleanser from Victor.
All of the above, except Barlow, are able to distinguish lowercase L from uppercase i (l v/s I). This is an important characteristic often overlooked by even popular fonts, like, macOS’s Helvetica, Roboto, Inter, etc. Hoping that this doesn’t count as self-promotion, I will link to an old blog post of mine which demonstrates an AppleTVPlus test for sans-serif fonts.
Among serif fonts, I rotate between Gentium Book Plus, Alegreya, and DejaVu Serif.
I think the Overton Window of fonts has moved significantly towards Comic Sans, which now actually looks kinda ok if you manage to ignore the history and memes.
We also not longer work in offices run by people who find it as the only option when they are feeling whimsical, but not whimsical enough to leave Word 97.
I dont think Comic Sans was ever a bad font, it just had a strong negative cultural association.
I think it’s less that Comic Sans was horrid, and more that it was overused.
It’s actually a pretty fine font for certain more lighthearted use cases, like—big surprise!—comics. But decades of people using it to print out basically everything, up to and including domestic violence leaflets and receipts from a morgue led to a negative gut association among the kind of people who care (at least a little) about typography.
I think the characters have less random lean to them than the “real” Comic Sans, which makes sense because letters that are more-or-less vertical are a lot easier to fit into a regular grid.
I once disabled webfonts and set Comic Sans / Comic Mono as my default fonts. It was quite relaxing. Not aimed at maximising readability (I’d have picked a good serif for a HiDpi screen or something like Frutiger otherwise), but it made the interwebs appear less… well, menacing.
In a similar vein, really helps with Java code for me.
Honestly, I don’t hate it. I think having some variance to each of the letters does wonders for legibility. I’m not dyslexic at all, but I seem to be able to read this better and faster than some “regular” monospace fonts.
Thanks, added to my set of “wonky” fonts, prepared for whenever I’m feeling whimsical, which, for my co-workers, is sadly half the time I am working. So far it has:
Of these, Cascadia Code has even become my default font, alongside DejaVu Sans Mono.
I find that each character has a distinct personality in such fonts, which makes code easier to read (in my eye at least). Also, due to their wonkiness, the spacing between characters is consistent.
And there is less chance of mistaking one character for another. Just yesterday, it took me a second to figure out where to break the variable name
Step1Of4, rendered in the stock DejaVu Sans Mono font - at step 1 or at step 10.Check out https://recursive.design with the CASL parameter maxed out for another good one.
Nice one!
Agave is great - I’ve used it from time to time and love it.
For more weird stuff (™️) see:
M, everything else is really pleasant and this was once my daily driver.This is great taste. I’m going to also use Victor Mono as my daily driver to escape the Jetbrains Monoculture.
I especially like the cursive italics. How do I get those to show up in more places?
One way to push this further would be to include some of the more esoteric script fonts (like these).
Quite a list! I’ve tried Victor Mono before, but found them too tall. Taller than even Fira Mono/Code.
Do either of you have interesting suggestions for proportional width fonts?
Among sans-serif, I am a fan of Atkinson Hyperlegible. I also like Asap (current fonts in my browser), Miriam Libre, PT Sans, and to some extent, Barlow.
Inclusive Components website employs Asap and Miriam Libre beautifully.
A bit controversial, but I’m not a fan of Inter.
All of the above, except Barlow, are able to distinguish lowercase L from uppercase i (l v/s I). This is an important characteristic often overlooked by even popular fonts, like, macOS’s Helvetica, Roboto, Inter, etc. Hoping that this doesn’t count as self-promotion, I will link to an old blog post of mine which demonstrates an
AppleTVPlustest for sans-serif fonts.Among serif fonts, I rotate between Gentium Book Plus, Alegreya, and DejaVu Serif.
Oh, those are definitely exquisite.
How is it so much better looking than the original (awful) Comic Sans?
I think the Overton Window of fonts has moved significantly towards Comic Sans, which now actually looks kinda ok if you manage to ignore the history and memes.
We also not longer work in offices run by people who find it as the only option when they are feeling whimsical, but not whimsical enough to leave Word 97.
I dont think Comic Sans was ever a bad font, it just had a strong negative cultural association.
Now we have Lobster, for when you need whimsical design for your restaurant menu, but also you are a cheapass.
This is the peak “~2010 indie app” font. Just needs some gradients after glossy glass effects became passe.
No, I still have the same reaction to Comic Sans in 2025… but this actually looks ok.
I think it’s less that Comic Sans was horrid, and more that it was overused.
It’s actually a pretty fine font for certain more lighthearted use cases, like—big surprise!—comics. But decades of people using it to print out basically everything, up to and including domestic violence leaflets and receipts from a morgue led to a negative gut association among the kind of people who care (at least a little) about typography.
I think the characters have less random lean to them than the “real” Comic Sans, which makes sense because letters that are more-or-less vertical are a lot easier to fit into a regular grid.
I’m using Comic Code right now. It’s also great!
Same! 😆
I once disabled webfonts and set Comic Sans / Comic Mono as my default fonts. It was quite relaxing. Not aimed at maximising readability (I’d have picked a good serif for a HiDpi screen or something like Frutiger otherwise), but it made the interwebs appear less… well, menacing.
In a similar vein, really helps with Java code for me.
I’ve used this for my editor and terminal for two years, it’s great!
am I crazy or… is this actually not a bad font???
I’m not going to switch from either Jetbrains Mono, Inconsolata or Iosevka, but it’s not half bad.
OK. So I did switch because of this post.
Yea – took a few days, but I’m back to Jetbrains Mono.
Honestly, I don’t hate it. I think having some variance to each of the letters does wonders for legibility. I’m not dyslexic at all, but I seem to be able to read this better and faster than some “regular” monospace fonts.
Love it! Immediately terminal feels friendlier :)
Lawful evil.
It looks… great?!
i’ve been using this in all my terminals for years at this point! it’s a really nice font :)
I wonder why this is licensed under MIT instead of an actual font license like SIL