IBM embodies modernist corporate design. From its striped logo, designed by Paul Rand, to its own open source family, the brand has always treated typography as a tool of rigour.
The typefaces
IBM's logo, designed by Paul Rand, took its eight-stripe form in 1972, with slab serif letters. For more than fifty years, the company used Helvetica as its corporate typeface. In 2017, it replaced it with IBM Plex, designed by Mike Abbink with the Dutch foundry Bold Monday and released under the free SIL Open Font License.
The system
IBM Plex is a superfamily: Plex Sans, Plex Serif, Plex Mono and Plex Sans Condensed, each in eight weights with italics, since extended to several non-Latin scripts. It serves both communication and interfaces, framed by the Carbon design system.
Why it works
Plex expresses the relationship between people and machines: a rigorous grotesque structure softened by more human details. The Mono version recalls the brand's computing heritage. Replacing Helvetica with an in-house typeface also freed IBM from significant licensing costs.
What a brand can learn from it
A superfamily, with sans, serif and mono, covers every use with a single voice. Open source helps a typeface spread and be adopted by teams. Building on a strong graphic heritage gives a change legitimacy.
Read also: IBM Plex, Helvetica, Slab serif, Monospace, Modernism, International Style