# Julia Logo: Commercial Font

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418>\
**Category:** Offtopic\
**Created:** [July 16, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418 "2019-07-16T13:22:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![carstenbauer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/carstenbauer/32/4981_2.png) [@carstenbauer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/carstenbauer)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/1 "2019-07-16T13:22:51Z")

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It’s a pity that the font in Julia’s logo, `MN Latin`, is commercial. Apparently it comes bundled with MacOS but as a Windows user that doesn’t help much.

I did find `Tamil MN` in the [https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia-logo-graphics](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia-logo-graphics) repository but not the original logo font.

Since it’s probably illegal to ask for the font, I will refrain from doing so. However, maybe there exist good free alternatives that look similar?

I’d appreciate any pointers.

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**Author:** ![pfitzseb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pfitzseb/32/45566_2.png) [@pfitzseb](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pfitzseb)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/2 "2019-07-16T13:53:50Z")

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That is the original font, afaict:

 ![grafik](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/b/a/ba2ff0cf4b3dc2bd502ea3bd4ade387119ffef72.png)  
Outline is Tamil MN with -65 letter spacing (in Photoshop).  
And IIRC all MN family fonts have the same latin chars, so they can be used interchangeably here.

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**Author:** ![carstenbauer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/carstenbauer/32/4981_2.png) [@carstenbauer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/carstenbauer)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/3 "2019-07-16T18:44:01Z")

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Oh, my bad. Thanks!

I was looking at [this](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/open-graph-image-for-the-julia-repository/23384/14) version by @cormullion and the “programming language” part seemed to be in a different font (of course, this isn’t part of the official logo). I’ll check again.

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**Author:** ![cormullion](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cormullion/32/49131_2.png) [@cormullion](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cormullion)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/4 "2019-07-16T21:00:14Z")

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The MN Latin font works well in the Julia logo, but it’s a bit odd generally, and isn’t highly regarded for general design work ([“MN Latin”: Latin characters of MN fonts bundled with macO… | Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/37656937654/)). Usually it’s not a problem to use one font for a logotype and a different one for related text; some companies might use the same font for both logo and general use, but others would/could never do that.

You shouldn’t feel you have to use MN Latin for every Julia-related heading. … 🙂

I think I used the new cut of Helvetica (Helvetica Now) for the text. Probably would use something different next time.

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**Author:** ![JeffreySarnoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jeffreysarnoff/32/1980_2.png) [@JeffreySarnoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/JeffreySarnoff)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/5 "2019-07-16T21:24:48Z")

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> [@cormullion](#):
>
> Probably would use something different next time.

Which fonts are at the top of your list for this purpose?

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**Author:** ![cormullion](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cormullion/32/49131_2.png) [@cormullion](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cormullion)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/6 "2019-07-16T22:00:40Z")

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That’s a question… 🙂 At the moment I’m interested in open-source fonts, probably as a result of working with Julia, so I’m trying things like [IBM Plex](https://github.com/IBM/plex).

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**Author:** ![cpfiffer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cpfiffer/32/208747_2.png) [@cpfiffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cpfiffer)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2020, 6:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/7 "2020-01-05T18:32:20Z")

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I wasn’t able to find a Windows/Ubuntu font that is similar to the MN-type fonts – does anyone have any pointers on that?

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**Author:** ![pfitzseb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pfitzseb/32/45566_2.png) [@pfitzseb](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pfitzseb)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 10:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/8 "2020-01-06T10:49:27Z")

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Any reason to not just install the [ttf in the above-linked repo](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia-logo-graphics/blob/master/font/TamilMN-Bold.ttf)?

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**Author:** ![cormullion](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cormullion/32/49131_2.png) [@cormullion](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cormullion)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 11:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/9 "2020-01-06T11:16:07Z")

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I’m guessing that it’s licensed only to Mac owners, so as soon as you ‘install’ it to a Windows/Ubuntu OS, you’re committing type piracy. Aaaarrgh, me hearties! 🙂

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**Author:** ![cpfiffer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cpfiffer/32/208747_2.png) [@cpfiffer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cpfiffer)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2020, 1:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-logo-commercial-font/26418/10 "2020-01-06T13:17:44Z")

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> [@pfitzseb](#):
>
> Any reason to not just install the [ttf in the above-linked repo](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia-logo-graphics/blob/master/font/TamilMN-Bold.ttf)?

Not a good one! I somehow managed to miss that there was a `font` folder at the repo root. Thanks, folks.