Mono (spaced) sten (cil), utilising a blend word, takes its name from the two types of font that it is; a monospaced, fixed pitch typeface and a classic stencil typeface.

Originally sketched in 2009 and released in 2010, Monosten was expanded into a three-weight, six style family in 2011. Furthermore, in 2017 the naming was changed to a more standardised structure. Its latest iteration, in 2019, extends the family even further, with two new heavier styles with accompanying stencil variants.

Monosten is now available in 5 weights — Light, Regular, Bold, ExtraBold and Fat — all with corresponding stencilled variants. It is available to license in both Standard (‘STD’) and Professional (‘PRO’) versions. The latter contains additional Cyrillic and Greek scripts, OpenType features, stylistic alternates, and alternate marks & symbols.