Custom Typography for Healthcare: Masimo’s UX/UI Font for Medical Devices
Client
Masimo
Agency
Direct collaboration
Industry
Healthcare and Tech
Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) is a global med-tech company known for noninvasive patient-monitoring—SET® pulse oximetry, capnography, brain and regional oximetry—and hospital automation that extends into telehealth. Their solutions power leading hospitals worldwide and are expanding into home monitoring via platforms like Masimo SafetyNet and the W1 Medical watch. They operate across 130+ markets and partner widely with OEMs.
Why a Bespoke Font for Healthcare HMI?
In spring 2022, Masimo approached us for a custom typeface—device-ready, multilingual, and licensed for exclusive ownership to streamline enterprise deployment and reduce long-term licensing costs for human–machine interfaces (HMI).
Their brief in short: replace Frutiger-style legibility with a modern system for embedded and mobile devices, spanning weights from Light to Black (upright and italic) and supporting a broad language roster. Following discovery, we aligned on Extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Arabic (incl. Farsi)—clarifying that italics are not applicable for Arabic script. The font would serve patient monitors, wearables, handhelds, and companion apps in highly regulated healthcare UI/UX environments.
Challenge & Goals — Legibility at a Glance, Everywhere
- Multiscript harmony: Design one coherent system across Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic while preserving brand consistency and clinical clarity.
- Accessibility & compliance: Prioritise readability and legibility for users aged roughly 25–65, including clinicians and consumers—optimised for contrast and glanceability on small, noisy displays.
- Screen optimisation: Audit resolutions across devices and ensure on-device readability, robust hinting, and performance (file size, render speed, battery).
- Continuity: Maintain familiar functional cues of their legacy UI font to avoid wholesale redesign of design systems.
- Scope realism: For CJK, recommend a high-quality open-source pairing (Noto) due to schedule and budget, ensuring a consistent multilingual UI experience.
Process & Solution — From Research to Embedded Delivery
Phase 1 — Research & Requirements
We benchmarked competitor HMIs and identified UI-critical traits: semi-condensed proportions, open counters, unmistakable silhouettes, and data-forward numerals. We advised tabular figures by default to stabilise vital-sign columns and alarms—key in medical device typography.
Phase 2 — Design Discovery
We explored two creative routes:
- The Accurate — refined, compact rhythm; open terminals; subtle sharpened details to signal precision.
- The Reliable — warmer grotesque flavour; gentle humanistic touches to convey trust. Masimo selected The Accurate for its clinical clarity and brand fit.
Phase 3 — Extended Latin
Iterative rounds focused on maximum screen performance—tight spacing control at small sizes (8–12 px), sturdy joins, and optical corrections for consistent readability vs. legibility balance.
Phase 4 — Script Expansion (Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic)
We engineered native solutions rather than “Latin with accents.”
- Cyrillic: local forms tuned for Bulgarian defaults where appropriate; medical abbreviations tested in UI context.
- Greek: classical cues simplified for device UI clarity.
- Arabic (incl. Farsi): careful attention to shaping, diacritics, spacing, and screen-first stroke modulation.For CJK, we paired Noto to cover Chinese, Korean, and Japanese until a future phase.
Engineering Hand-off & Performance
We delivered production-ready fonts with robust hinting, consistent metrics, and variants tailored for embedded rendering. Deliverables included spec sheets, UI guidance, and licensing for on-device distribution to support enterprise font management across teams.
Results — Device-Ready, Multilingual, and Consistent
- One font system, many screens: Embedded across 14 Masimo B2B & B2C products, from patient monitors to wearables and handhelds, with clear pathways for future rollouts.
- Brand consistency: A single bespoke font aligns clinical-grade UI with Masimo’s brand typography systemacross hardware, apps, and communications.
- Operational efficiency: Exclusive rights & ownership simplified procurement, compliance, and global deployment—especially for app & hardware licensing.
- Clarity where it counts: Default tabular figures, tuned contrast, and optical sizes improved time-to-informationat a glance in human-interaction displays.
“Masi Sans Pro gave our interfaces a clear, calm voice—multilingual, precise, and easy to read. Rolling it out across devices was seamless, and owning the system pays off every single day.” — [Keith Indorf, VP UX Design]
From Brand to Bedside
A custom UI/UX typeface is more than a styling choice—it’s a safety and usability tool. By unifying Extended Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, and Arabic in a single, device-ready system, Masimo gained brand consistency, accessibility, and enterprise control over typography—across markets and product lines.
Project Details
- Duration: 90 business days
- Team:
- Creative Type Director — Plamen Motev
- Type Designers — Vika Usmanova, Leo Guibert
- Type Production — Leo Guibert