Whenever I see a well-written text with a good layout, it really appeals to me and I find myself staring at it and admiring it. I also admire particularly well-made fonts, and beautiful handwriting and calligraphy.
On the other hand, texts can be marred for me by a poor choice of font and/or layout, and by unattractive handwriting. Errors within texts can grate somewhat, but they far have less impact if I find the text visually appealing.
I’m not sure if my interest in alphabets and writing systems came from this typophilia, or if the typophilia (a word I just coined for this post) came from that interest. Is there another word that means “a love of writing in all its forms”? Graphophilia is a possibility.
If I ever get myself a phone with a camera, one thing I’ll take pictures of will be appealing texts, notices and signs.
Do any of you have a similar obsession with texts, writing and type?
I wouldn’t call mine an obsession, more an amateur’s keen interest: both from the point of view of aesthetic design, and as an aspect of writing (and language more generally). I think typophilia and graphophilia are useful words, the former where stress is on the lettering and the latter for broader, writing-related senses. (Both seem to have been coined independently multiple times, but neither has penetrated sufficiently to make it into the OED.)
One manifestation of my own mild typophilia is that I sometimes choose to read one book over another from the shelf because its typeface and textual presentation are significantly more appealing. Literarily it’s an arbitrary criterion, but I can’t always ignore the sensory aspects when deciding what to read next.