Typophile

Newbie Seeing Typeface Everywhere

katzenjammer

I walk outside and the snow settles betwen the bricks, describing a million perfectly white capital “I”s, with gorgeously subtle serifs. Each of them unique and yet they go together.

I was playing hockey this morning - and every single cut in the ice felt like lettermaking, lots of “c”s and “o”s and “u”s.

The branches in the park nearby have delightfully light “fs” with sharply invividualized flags, and “ts” with the wispiest of crossbars.

And so on....

Is this a normal reaction to visiting this site and spending time with books on typeface/typography?

Anyone else experience this?

I wonder if the alphabet came from observing nature? I remember Robert Graves claiming that the letter “v” came from watching geese. :-)

‹ Akzidenz-Grotesk Collection Non-Latin Conference: 18-19 September 2007, London and Reading ›
Choz Cunningham

Yes. I’ve seen it mentioned here and there among posts, or at least hinted at. It is perfectly normal. Okay, I don’t really know if it is really “normal”, but it happens. The shapes of the letters are very powerful, and the most ungainly are no accident. When you’ve got them on your brain, their ghosts appear everywhere.

The rest of the time, I think people seem to get sucked into consiously IDing and analyzing the typeface choices of others around them. I was flipping through some CDs, and thinking, “Why don’t the labels use more hand lettering?”

Choz Cunningham
!Exclamachine Type Foundry
The Snark

Linda Cunningham

I’d call it “normal”: it’s not dissimilar to the phenomenon experienced by medical students who think they have every disease in the book when at medical school (I’ve got two brothers-in-law who said it was very common).

Chris Lozos

David,
You have just taken your first step in our 12 step program. Now, repeat after me: “My name is David and I am a Typoholic”

ChrisL

James Scriven

the world will not look the same, just wait to you see all of the not so good “tpyography”

Norbert Florendo

Discovery of letterforms in day-to-day life and in nature can be quite exhilarating...


(collected pebble alphabet by Clotilde Olyff)

It’s poor s pacing & bad KER NING that will eventually drive you crazy! ;-)

Chris Lozos

He must’ve been really stoned to make that one :-)

ChrisL

Alessandro Segalini

A great thing to respect letters and nature, David Smith.
You may find interesting to read about Alfred Kallir.

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