Anthrosevka Mono: Custom Iosevka build inspired by Anthropic Mono
I’m happy to share Anthrosevka Mono, a custom build of Iosevka inspired by the look and feel of Anthropic Mono. Prebuilt TTFs are available from the GitHub releases, and there is a microsite with specimen and code samples if you’d like to see it first.
This is the 4th entry in my coding font series, after DM Mono, Noto Sans Mono, and Paper Mono. The first three were all Fira Code ligatures patched onto an existing font. Anthrosevka Mono works differently, because Iosevka itself works differently.
Why Iosevka
If you haven’t used Iosevka before, the elevator pitch is that it’s a programming font, but it’s also a typesetting system. Iosevka is a parametric, code-generated typeface: rather than being drawn in a font editor, every glyph is generated programmatically from a set of underlying mathematical rules and design parameters.
The practical benefit is that Iosevka can have design variants and be customized in ways that would be expensive for a hand-drawn font. The Iosevka Customizer is an HTML tool where you click through each glyph variant and see the result update in your browser. When you’re happy, it exports a TOML config that you can plug back into the build to reproduce the exact font from source. The same TOML can be imported into the customizer later, so the loop is fully reversible. If you can describe what you want in Iosevka’s design vocabulary, you can have it.
Glyph choices
Most of the Anthropic Mono design intent maps cleanly onto Iosevka variants.
All of these are one toggle away in the customizer: double-storey a and g,
dotted zero, square dots, and many more. None of it should be surprising.
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n
o p q r s t u v w x y z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N
O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
[ ] { } ( ) < > + - * / ^ =
! ? @ % & # $ ~ ` ; : , .A few glyphs in Anthropic Mono don’t have an exact match in Iosevka, and I had to patch the glyphs or settle for the closest available alternative:
0 1 J Q g r ~ , ^ @ % ¶In particular, Q, g, and @ are signature glyphs that define a typeface’s
character, and the available Iosevka variants approximate the feel rather
than replicate it. Others, like ¶, are minor enough that almost any choice
would do, but I still wanted to land them somewhere consistent with the rest.
Ligatures and operators
Unlike the ligaturized fonts in this series, Iosevka ships with a thoughtful set of programming ligatures that are designed alongside the rest of the font and enabled by default. Here are the common ones you’ll see day to day:
<- -> => ==> |> :: :::
== != >= <= === || //And the broader operator and punctuation set:
[] {} () <> + - * / ^ =
! ? @ % & # $ ~ ` ; : , .A visual verifier
Building the font takes a single command. The harder question is whether the customization actually resembles the thing we set out to copy. After staring at glyphs for too long, every shape starts to look both wrong and right at the same time.
To keep myself honest, I built a static HTML glyph verifier with AI’s help. Point it at any two fonts (installed locally or loaded from a URL), and you can compare them at the glyph level with overlays.
Setting it up
For VS Code and its forks:
"editor.fontFamily": "'Anthrosevka Mono', monospace",
"editor.fontLigatures": "'calt', 'liga'",
"terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "'Anthrosevka Mono', monospace",
"terminal.integrated.fontLigatures.enabled": true,For Ghostty:
font-family = Anthrosevka Mono
adjust-cell-height = 8Attribution
A big thank you to @be5invis and the Iosevka contributors. Almost everything good about Anthrosevka Mono comes straight from Iosevka. I just flipped a few switches.
Anthrosevka Mono is an independent third-party project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Anthropic PBC.