Jeff Kellem and I met at TypeCon in 2013, where at one point he informally shared a type specimen of a work in progress, which would become “1403 Vintage Mono”. The typeface design immediately felt familiar (due to its origin — read on for more about that) and I admired how, over time, it has become perfectly positioned at the intersection of technology and science fiction, with a well-earned dash of nostalgia. The diligence and exactitude he was applying in expanding the glyph repertoire and the critical design adjustments he made were impressive. As one designer to another, I provided some feedback and encouraged him to keep moving forward with it. He did, and released it the following year.
Fast forward twelve years, when we met up (as we often do) at another conference — this time it was Face/Interface at Stanford — I proposed the idea of Delve Fonts becoming a distributor of 1403 Vintage Mono. After a few scheduling hiccups on my end (life happens) and some much-needed technical assistance from Jeff, it is a pleasure to announce 1403 Vintage Mono is now available here at Delve Fonts.
1403 Vintage Mono was inspired by the IBM 1403 mainframe line printer from the 1960s. When Jeff Kellem began his research for the project but printed samples were minimal, requiring a bit of guesswork for some shapes. He started with the basic 48 glyphs (26 letters, 10 digits, and 12 symbols) used on the 1403 ‘A’ chain. Mixing between the ‘A’ and ‘H’ chains, a few more characters were discovered (e.g.- a square lozenge symbol) and added to the font. Kellem also sourced several more glyphs from chains that had been modified to support Icelandic text.
In the early stages of design, the weight was heavier, slightly wider overall, and spacing was tighter. With rigorous proofing and testing of each iteration, Kellem made critical adjustments. What would become “1403 Vintage Mono Limited” now had the original 52 characters present in the printer, along with the basic complement of Latin characters and small capitals in place of lowercase characters. The completed font supports Unicode Latin-1 and Adobe Latin 2 sets.
The “Pro” version of 1403 Vintage Mono has a much larger repertoire of glyphs — clocking in at 366 Latin alphabet based languages supported, including: Vietnamese, Catalan, Czech, and Polish. In addition, the Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew scripts are present, increasing support by 77 more languages.
Use 1403 Vintage Mono at display sizes on book and album covers, in film titles, and elsewhere to signal trust and accuracy.
At text sizes, its monospaced quality means it is easy to set copy in columns and grids. It also lends a sense of authenticity and officialdom to indices, labels, and documents. •!•
More 1403 Vintage Mono →
Related Links
Slanted Hall Blog Post: An IBM 1403 Printer Inspired Typeface (In Progress)