IBM Plex is an international typeface family designed by Mike Abbink of IBM BX&D in collaboration with Bold Monday, an independent Dutch type foundry. The design set out to capture IBM’s spirit and history, and the relationship between people and machines that has been a theme for the company since the turn of the century.
Plex Sans is the grotesque in the family: neutral but friendly, with italics that are more expressive than you might expect. The variable version has a weight axis from 100 to 700 and a width axis from 75 to 100, and it covers Latin, Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese. Google Fonts added it in March 2018.
The ZIP contains 14 static TTF files and the two variable fonts.
Best uses for IBM Plex Sans
- Corporate and technical documents
- Software interfaces and dashboards
- Annual reports
- Documentation sites
- Slides for technical talks
Font pairings
Plex was planned as a set, so it pairs best inside the family: IBM Plex Serif for editorial text and IBM Plex Mono for code. For an outside partner, Lora brings a softer tone.
Licence & credit
IBM Plex Sans is designed by Mike Abbink and Bold Monday and released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. That makes it free for personal and commercial use: logos, packaging, websites, apps, videos and print. You can bundle it in your own projects and modify it. You cannot sell the font files by themselves, and the licence text stays with them. Our guide to the SIL Open Font License explains what that means in practice. The family is also on Google Fonts and its source is on the project page.
IBM Plex Sans Font Family
License: Personal & Commercial Use
Font Type: Free
Format: TTF
File Size: 2.1 MB
Total Files: 16
