---
# System prepended metadata

title: "\n    Developer Designing a Fantastic Programming Font Based On Minecraft"

---

<h1>
    Developer Designing a Fantastic Programming Font Based On Minecraft</h1>
    <html><body><p><p><br/> North Carolina-based developer Idrees Hassan loves Minecraft so that he has recently designed a monospaced typeface for programming that is based on the typeface in the hugely popular video game. Monocraft gives programmers the experience of being in Minecraft without the need to use any assets from the game.<br/></p><br/><p><br/> "To be honest, I made this font as I thought it would be fun to discover how fonts work," Hassan told Ars. "Existing Minecraft fonts lacked a many specifics, like proper kerning or the size of the pixels. So I decided to make my own. I was able to make it a 'proper programming font' once that was done. I am now able to write Minecraft plugins in a Minecraft font!<br/></p><br/><p><br/> To adapt the Minecraft font for development purposes, Hassan redesigned characters to look better in a monospaced layout and added some serifs to make letters like "i" and "l" easier to differentiate and create new programming ligature characters and improved the arrow characters to make them easier to read. (Ligature characters blend popular strings of characters used in operations like "!=" into one character, but they're not always popular with developers.)<br/></p><br/><p><br/> You can download Monocraft from GitHub for no cost (get "Monocraft.otf" on the Releases page). It isn't endorsed by Microsoft or Mojang and is considered to be as a fan-project. As an OpenType font, it can be used on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Right-click the font file to install it on Windows.  <a href="https://igralni.com/">Igralni</a> Double-click the font file on a Mac and select "Install Font" from the Font Book window.<br/></p><br/><p><br/> Hassan previously made a faithful copy of the Minecraft font, which uses variable spacing just like the font in Minecraft. It is also available on GitHub.<br/></p><br/><p><br/> Markus "Notch", the Minecraft creator, originally created the Minecraft font for an earlier game called Legend of the Chambered. This was circa 2008. The Minecraft font has retro pixel art that harkens back to 16-bit and 8-bit console games that was a great match for Notch's low-fi style of art. It's now a popular font for developers from all over the world.<br/></p></p></body></html>
</h1>