I will try to mimic Nixie tube digits in an application. For responsiveness and scalability I won’t use any rasterized images of actual tubes, this will be a sufficiently adequate mock which just wants to give back the atmosphere of Nixie tubes. I’m planning to achieve this by coloring a matching font’s digits and cast a glow effect too. For reference here are some real Nixie tubes:
(the photo was taken from http://danyk.cz/digitrony_en.html if you want to see many more examples).I’m searching for a TTF format primarily. I was going through many dozens of fonts in Google Webfonts’ Helper. I was primarily aiming for Monospace + Sans Serif fonts. Monospace would guarantee even spacing, but if it comes to push and shove I can work with a non Monospace font as well.
So far the closest I found is:
Overpass Mono
What is great in this one is the digit “2”. As you can see the bottom part has that curve. Almost all of the other candidate fonts I saw don’t have that curve. However it has one major and a minor flaw. Major flaw is that central dot inside the digit “0”. And the minor one is the serif bottom of the digit “1”. Other slight thing is that it’s fatter than I’d like it to be, it could be a 100 weight.
Other examples:
Inconsolata Regular
The digit “1” doesn’t have the serif bottom, the “0” has a crossover instead of a dot, which I can live with. The digit “2” does not have the bottom curve what the Nixie tube “2” or the Overpass mono has. It is not offered in thinner than regular weight.
Just like the Inconsolata the “1” does not have the serif, the “2” does not have the curve though. The zero has a crossover, the 100 weight availability is a plus here.
The “0” does not have a dot, but a crossover, however the “1” has a serif bottom, the “2” does not have the bottom curve and the “3” diverts in style from the Nixie simplicity.
If anyone can point me towards a font which matches the Nixie tube’s style better, please don’t hesitate. The font doesn’t have to be free (I’m just saying because the Google Webfonts above are free).
Answer
One family I’ve recently noticed is the TT Chocolates and the Extra Light looks pretty close to what you need, but note the ‘1’ in the image below is replaced with an uppercase ‘i’ (as suggested by Chris H in the comments below).
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Csaba Toth , Answer Author : Lucian