Top all-time · #1869
Mark Simonson
Personal blog · marksimonson.comdesignwriting
Mark Simonson's personal blog at marksimonson.com covers design and writing. Since 2010, 42 different Hacker News readers have linked it 45 times, most often “Anonymous Pro – a fixed-width font designed for coders”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Mark Simonson Studio is the creator of Proxima Nova and home to a range of unique typefaces ideally suited for every need in your design brief.
Most-linked posts?
- Anonymous Pro – a fixed-width font designed for coders11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2013-09-09
- /fonts/view/anonymous-pro5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-01-02
- Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-06-28
- The Scourge of Arial (2001)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-04-22
- The Scourge of Arial (2001)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-10
- How to Spot Arial2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-09-25
- First Public Use of What Became Proxima Nova2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-03-31
What Hacker News says?
Any love for Anonymous Pro? https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Lesser Known Coding Fonts”Submitted Anonymous Pro – a fixed-width font designed for coders as a story · 181 points
HN discussionLooks like Anonymous Pro. http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Iosevka – A Typeface for Code, from Code”Submitted Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001) as a story · 143 points
HN discussionDina used to be my go-to font as well but a few years ago I switched to Anonymous Pro [1] as it tends to be more recognizable at the small font sizes which I use. [1] http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Hack: A typeface designed for source code”Submitted The Scourge of Arial (2001) as a story · 56 points
HN discussionAnother coding font worth mentioning is Anonymous Pro http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Hack: A typeface designed for source code”Submitted The Scourge of Arial (2001) as a story · 45 points
HN discussionI've been using Anonymous Pro[0] for as long as I've known about it. I think I think Anonymous slightly more than Hack. On a different note, while this might sound like a silly gripe, I really don't like the "r"s in Hack. They seem off. [0] http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Hack: A typeface designed for source code”Submitted First Public Use of What Became Proxima Nova as a story · 29 points
HN discussionMight want to add Anonymous Pro to the stable: https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro It looks a bit weird in short runs, but is great somehow when used on actual code.
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Courier Prime: It’s Courier, Just Better”Submitted That Japanese Woodcut (2016) as a story · 12 points
HN discussionI'm a huge fan of Anonymous Pro... If you want to compare with something else. http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Fira Sans: a Free, Open Source Typeface Commissioned by Mozilla”Submitted De Re Atari as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat is true, here’s a fun comparison: http://www.marksimonson.com/notebook/view/how-to-spot-arial As you can see, all the areas in which Monotype Arial is different from Linotype Helvetica are borrowed from Monotype Grot. The reason to make such a monster is purely financial.
Comment linking /notebook/view/how-to-spot-arial
on “Mozilla's New Fira Typeface”Submitted The Day I Discovered Type Design as a story · 2 points
HN discussionUgh. This is terrible. Use Anonymous or Anonymous Pro. http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Hermit: a font for programmers, by a programmer”Submitted Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA free, simple one I like: https://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro (also available from Google and Adobe). I have long hesitated to pay for fonts for personal, non commercial use. However a well designed font really can make a difference in the usability of a computer. I'm checking these out, I'm at the point where I would be willing to spend some serious cash for a font. Although to me, "serious cash"…
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Coding with Character”Submitted Pre-Digital Font Tech: Formatt as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere is a tilde in the full sample: http://www.marksimonson.com/assets/content/fonts/AnonymousPr...
Comment linking /assets/content/fonts/AnonymousProSpecimen.pdf
on “Anonymous Pro – a fixed-width font designed for coders”Submitted Typecasting: The Use (and Misuse) of Period Typography as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIncreasingly, professional typeface designers working today are coders as well. The OpenType format for fonts allows designers to program font behaviour, often in pretty sophisticated ways. These range from standard typographic niceties like automatic substitution of a pre-defined sequence of glyphs with a ligature, to contextual substitutions of alternates to make a handwriting font more natural-looking, to even mo…
Comment linking /notebook/view/pangrammer-helper-robofont-style
on “Anonymous Pro – a fixed-width font designed for coders”Submitted De Re Atari as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThat depends what the idea is. If the idea is an idea for an article for a blog that exists to showcase your business or interests, then yes, absolutely, in that case how many people are attracted to the article and learn about what you do and your skills should be a major measure of success. > If only all those people in history thought like that, we'd still be living in caves. If "all those people" through history…
Comment linking /info/about
on “Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)”Submitted Typecasting: the use and misuse of period typography in movies (2001) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion:D How about Proxima Nova? ( http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/proxima-nova )
Comment linking /fonts/view/proxima-nova
on “Show HN: YouTransfer – Self-hosted file sharing”Submitted The Scourge of Arial (2001) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAnonymous Pro http://www.marksimonson.com/fonts/view/anonymous-pro is what I use in my terminal and editor.
Comment linking /fonts/view/anonymous-pro
on “Show HN: Luculent, a new code/terminal font”Submitted How to Spot Arial as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
