ZX OCR-B

Adrian Frutiger designed OCR-B for Monotype in 1968 as a more human-friendly alternative to OCR-A now that machines were getting better at optical character recognition. It can still be found today on the bottom of bar codes and the machine-readable part of passports.

I created this liberal adaptation on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 using the Artist II in the late 1980s. Given the lack of strong visual cues, it could be easily mistaken for a sans-serif, although the numeric glyphs still shine through.

It is suitable for any scenario where a clean machine-influenced look is desirable.

Styles & variants