Courier: the typewriter font screenplays still use
An IBM typewriter face that screenplays never gave up.
Courier
ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789
- 48Quartz
- 32Judge my vow
- 24Sphinx of black quartz
- 18Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
- 14Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Preview uses Courier Prime, the closest free match.
In use, with Inter
Edit the words to try your own. The pairing tool has more body fonts.
Some roads only go one way.
The Long Way Home
Two brothers, one borrowed car and a thousand miles of coast between them and the funeral. In cinemas this spring.
History
- Howard "Bud" Kettler designed Courier for IBM in the mid-1950s. Sources disagree on 1955 or 1956.[1]
- Courier Prime, by Alan Dague-Greene and funded by John August, was released in January 2013 under the SIL Open Font License.[1]
Who uses it
- Screenplays, where 12 point Courier or a close variant is the industry standard[1]
- The US State Department, whose standard was 12 point Courier New until January 2004[1]
Sources
The free alternative
Courier Prime is a free Courier made for screenplays, with the same fixed widths and slab serifs.
Body fonts that go with Courier Prime:
- InterA proportional sans body, with the typewriter face kept for headings and labels.
- Source Serif 4A serif body gives a document or archive feel.
- IBM Plex MonoAll monospace, for a terminal or notebook look.
Other fonts
- TrajanRoman inscription capitals, and the movie poster font.
- HelveticaThe Swiss sans that ended up on subway signs and airline logos.
- ArialDrawn to the same widths as Helvetica, shipped with Windows.
- FuturaThe 1927 geometric sans of circles and straight lines.
- GothamWide geometric capitals taken from New York building signs.
- ImpactA 1965 Sheffield display face that became the meme font.
- GaramondSixteenth century Paris type, revived many times since.
- Times New RomanMade for a London newspaper in 1932, then shipped with Windows.
- DidotHigh contrast French type, and the look of fashion magazines.
- BaskervilleA Birmingham printer’s sharper, lighter serif from the 1750s.
- Comic SansDrawn in 1994 for the speech bubbles in Microsoft Bob.
- RobotoGoogle's Android system font since 2011.