Phil Pluckthun is the creator of Dank Mono, a new monospaced programming font with ligatures. He is also a core contributor to Styled Components, a component-based CSS Library. Tune in to hear a discussion on how Phil got involved with design, how he become a core contributor to the styled-components library, and how and why he started working on Dank Mono.
Today we are joined by Phil Pluchthun, creator of the programming font Dank Mono and core contributor to the styled-components library. Phil will be talking about his work in design and programming, styled components, the process of making a font, and finally some advice to anyone who wants to make a font of their own.
So what are styled components? It's a new component-based CSS and Jest library. It's all about using these small styled components that you put in instead of HTML. It's nice because you don't have to create a whole new component that renders for some simple styling.
Phil talks about as a developer he's always been in a role where he's had to work closely with designers and provide feedback for them. Over time he started to work more with design projects, and as he worked for small startups without a lead design, he found himself filling that role.
Dank Mono is Phil's first font, He's always enjoyed typography, and as he's gone along it starting turning out better than he thought. When he started, he just wanted to make some ligatures for Operator Mono, but there were some terms in there that would prevent him from ever being able to share it.
In the beginning, Phil was doing every letter from scratch. He started with an h because it has an excellent shape that can be reused with many letters. Halfway through he learned that Glyphs app supports components, so he had to start over after a week!
Phil encourages anyone who is not entirely satisfied with the fonts available to think about what they'd want to change. He recommends to start with Glyphs app and watch and read its related talks and tutorials and to start with a single letter to see how you like it!
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