IBM Plex
January 26, 2025 6:06 PM Subscribe
"As the new typeface for our diverse and global brand, IBM Plex® is just as important as our name or our logo. It fine-tunes the tone of our words. It represents who we are and what we believe — as a company and as designers. Every decision was made with purpose; every detail has a reason for being." (previously)
I use IBM Plex Mono in my text editor. I like it. (And it's open source.)
“When I came to IBM, it was a big discussion: Why does IBM not have a bespoke typeface? Why are we still clinging on to Helvetica?” Mike Abbink, the typeface’s designer and IBM’s executive creative director of brand experience and design, says in a video explainer. “The way we speak to people and the conversations we need to have and we’d like to have, is that still the right way to express ourselves? We should really design a typeface that really reflects our belief system and make it relevant to people now. Helvetica is a child of a particular sect of modernist thinking that’s gone today.”____________
Perhaps it was because of the flashiness of the website but I’ve mostly ignored the type family until now. I rolled my eyes too quickly at the announcement as so many big brands are designing custom typefaces and, generally speaking, they’re rather boring variations on a well-trodden theme. There’s nothing daring in them, there’s no care or acknowledgement to the history of a company. ...____________
IBM Plex however is something special and weird and unlike those other big rebranding efforts. Reed Reibstein’s Typographica review convinced me to take a second look and really look at what’s going on here...
I use IBM Plex Mono in my text editor. I like it. (And it's open source.)
Any money Big tech is giving to creatives rather than shoveling into the AI furnace I can’t be mad at.
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:16 PM on January 26 [31 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 6:16 PM on January 26 [31 favorites]
(2017), and it looks like there was a minor update two months ago
posted by MengerSponge at 6:56 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by MengerSponge at 6:56 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
2017
Yeah, I couldn't believe this wasn't FPP-ed at the time. It seems just like our kind of huckleberry.
posted by Lemkin at 6:59 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I couldn't believe this wasn't FPP-ed at the time. It seems just like our kind of huckleberry.
posted by Lemkin at 6:59 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
honestly I like it when someone makes a new font and puts a lot of careful work into it
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:04 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:04 PM on January 26 [13 favorites]
→
Wait, a typeface that set up a secret shell company so it could maintain an illegal trade link with a fascist regime? Dang, I knew that OpenType features were Turing-complete, but I didn't expect this …
(Plex is a nice font family. IBM is not a nice company)
posted by scruss at 7:14 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
When we set out to create a typeface that was unmistakably IBM …
Wait, a typeface that set up a secret shell company so it could maintain an illegal trade link with a fascist regime? Dang, I knew that OpenType features were Turing-complete, but I didn't expect this …
(Plex is a nice font family. IBM is not a nice company)
posted by scruss at 7:14 PM on January 26 [10 favorites]
When we set out to create a typeface that was unmistakably IBM, our own history was our greatest source of inspiration.
IBM and the Holocaust
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:02 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
IBM and the Holocaust
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:02 PM on January 26 [5 favorites]
I'm pretty quick to roll my eyes at breathless design briefs but I found the IBM site to be mostly grounded and interesting. It's certainly no Pepsi Breathtaking Strategy (pdf).
posted by davidest at 8:13 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by davidest at 8:13 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Plex was discussed on the Orange site when it launched..
Comment: "From my experience dealing with IBM, I can only imagine this was the result of 5 different consulting teams, assisted by 3 different outsourced development groups, which was delayed numerous times, then Watson was added, and then a re-org caused by layoffs, which finally resulted in a website that couldn't scroll and caused the CPU of my high-end laptop to scream..."posted by JoeZydeco at 8:14 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]
Reply: "You missed the most important part; it was initiated by a team of lawyers who were tipped off by another team who noticed the Watson design team were using a typeface on public websites which they didn't have the copyright to, and certainly didn't have the license to redistribute.
Almost 2 years later, Plex was born.
(This is a true story, by the way.)"
Just to remind, that Pepsi thing was revealed to be a (pitch-perfect) hoax.
posted by JHarris at 8:52 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 8:52 PM on January 26 [3 favorites]
From the "something special" link in the original post:
Plex Mono Italic’s f appears out of a dimension of it’s own though and doesn’t seem related to that historical model:
I would have thought that the Venn diagram of people who care deeply about fonts and people who care about its vs it's was a perfect circle.
Whenever I see that error, I immediately stop reading that piece.
posted by intermod at 9:01 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Plex Mono Italic’s f appears out of a dimension of it’s own though and doesn’t seem related to that historical model:
I would have thought that the Venn diagram of people who care deeply about fonts and people who care about its vs it's was a perfect circle.
Whenever I see that error, I immediately stop reading that piece.
posted by intermod at 9:01 PM on January 26 [4 favorites]
Mod note: One removed. It's okay if you don't like IBM, or marketing-speak, (or fonts?), but just "fuck off" isn't great engagement. Consider skipping this one.
posted by taz (staff) at 9:11 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 9:11 PM on January 26 [8 favorites]
Ooh, that IBM Plex Serif is a funky little number. I like it.
Needs more dingbats, though.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:28 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Needs more dingbats, though.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:28 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
Something about the 'inc' in 'distinctly' seems typographically off IMHO (but I'm no expert) - that was the first thing that stood out to me. But fixating on the wrong thing is a bad habit of mine.
posted by phigmov at 10:38 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by phigmov at 10:38 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
wait, the Pepsi brand manual thing was a hoax? I would love to read more about this, because a bit of googling doesn't seem to reveal anything beyond people wondering if it might be a hoax
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:48 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:48 PM on January 26 [1 favorite]
Re: Pepsi Breathtaking, I don't remember where I heard it, and it could have been from a real-world friend confidently saying it was a hoax when he in fact didn't have the proper evidence, as real-world friends in my experience sometimes do. Looking it over again, it does seem a lot like such exquisitely crafted bullshit, which could either be a hoax or the result of all-too-real marketing mindsets. I did some searching now too and can't find online sources confirming it being a hoax, so I could be mistaken.
posted by JHarris at 11:15 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 11:15 PM on January 26 [2 favorites]
I use Plex Mono in xterm with ttf support and it's very pleasant. It's also unique enough that I often get asked about it in screenshots.
Although I don't like the "g" with the two stacked loops, but haven't taken the time with fontforge to fix it.
posted by autopilot at 12:48 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Although I don't like the "g" with the two stacked loops, but haven't taken the time with fontforge to fix it.
posted by autopilot at 12:48 AM on January 27 [1 favorite]
It’s cute and sorta funky, I guess. I find too visually busy and distracting, though. I think General Electric did the custom corporate font right with GE Inspira Sans.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:08 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 1:08 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Goldman Sans is another well-made corporate font which is free to download and use. As long as you don't use it to criticize Goldman Sachs, apparently.
posted by Termite at 1:52 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Termite at 1:52 AM on January 27 [2 favorites]
Typical big iron dinosaur move. Intel is on its third bespoke font by now.
posted by ckape at 5:28 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
posted by ckape at 5:28 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: needs more dingbats, though
posted by Lemkin at 5:58 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 5:58 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
I was skimming over the Plex site, mildly enjoying the over-the-topness and finding something sort of pleasingly old-school about excitement over a new typeface, and then I hit the signs in the big photo about halfway down the Gallery page:
posted by Kat Allison at 8:20 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
... and I was all "Well, hello, George Orwell."Unknown is Trusted
Disruption is Seamless
Defense is Offense
Chaos is Calming
posted by Kat Allison at 8:20 AM on January 27 [5 favorites]
I would have thought that the Venn diagram of people who care deeply about fonts and people who care about its vs it's was a perfect circle.
"People who care deeply about fonts" should be split into three groups:
The first, and overwhelming majority, is pedants who hate on Comic Sans, who are linguistic prescriptivists, and who care deeply about its vs it's. These folks shouldn't be trusted.
The second is design nerds. These aren't designers, but they're people who know the difference between a typeface and a font.
They might quote McSweeney's "I'm Comic Sans, Asshole."
Marissa Mayer is 100% one of these.
So am I, but at least I'm not powerful enough to inadvertently ruin a design team's weekend.
The third, final, and smallest group: actual designers. These are artists, and the only ones who actually design the things the rest of us talk about.
posted by MengerSponge at 9:12 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
"People who care deeply about fonts" should be split into three groups:
The first, and overwhelming majority, is pedants who hate on Comic Sans, who are linguistic prescriptivists, and who care deeply about its vs it's. These folks shouldn't be trusted.
The second is design nerds. These aren't designers, but they're people who know the difference between a typeface and a font.
They might quote McSweeney's "I'm Comic Sans, Asshole."
Marissa Mayer is 100% one of these.
So am I, but at least I'm not powerful enough to inadvertently ruin a design team's weekend.
The third, final, and smallest group: actual designers. These are artists, and the only ones who actually design the things the rest of us talk about.
posted by MengerSponge at 9:12 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
pedants who hate on Comic Sans, who are linguistic prescriptivists, and who care deeply about its vs it's. These folks shouldn't be trusted
Is it possible to hate Comic Sans without hating on it?
I mean, I don’t hate it because that’s what the cool kids are doing. I hate it because it’s ugly.
posted by Lemkin at 9:47 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Is it possible to hate Comic Sans without hating on it?
I mean, I don’t hate it because that’s what the cool kids are doing. I hate it because it’s ugly.
posted by Lemkin at 9:47 AM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Oh, Thorzdad, I actually love that GE Inspira Sans -- thanks for mentioning it !
posted by wenestvedt at 11:02 AM on January 27
posted by wenestvedt at 11:02 AM on January 27
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We spent a phenomenal gobsmacking amount of money for a slightly slicker version of Myriad and we can't quite believe we did that ourselves.
posted by birdsongster at 6:12 PM on January 26 [9 favorites]