• 24 Jan, 2026 *

As far as hobbies go, this is definitely a strange one. I have absolutely no idea why, but I have become totally obsessed with fonts, their styling and their history!

There’s even a font appreciation webring which I’m considering joining (though I keep my webrings in the links section and I"m not sure that’s ideal).

As soon as I see an interesting one, I seek out the name and then the foundry that made it. It goes into a special pinned list, with notes on why I like it and associated links. I test all the variations it comes in - bold, italics, optical sizing etc. Then it joins my font rotation.

I’m starting to become so familiar with certain ones that I can instantly recognise them on a website. As much as I hate Google, it’s bloody awesome having such a huge repository available to everyone - if I like something there, I upload a self-hosted version, or use this privacy-focused drop-in replacement for grabbing them.

I used to have a Creative Cloud subscription for Photoshop which gave access to Adobe’s own massive font library. Unfortunately you can only host them via Adobe, so when I dumped Photoshop in favour of Affinity, I lost access. One of my top 5 fonts (Gelica) is from there and that’s why I stopped using it on my blog. As much as I love fonts, I can’t spend hundreds of pounds on each one and I am strict about adhering to licensing terms. The only font I’ve chosen to purchase is the one I’m using right now (Besley) and it was only $10 USD.

What makes this a particularly annoying obsession hobby is that it’s affecting my own website. I have changed the font more times than I’ve had hot dinners in the last 2 weeks, then invariably I change it back. I mess with the font weight, the size, the colour, even the width! The font you’re seeing at the time of posting this is a variable width font set at 93% (yes, I wittle down to the percentage point!).

It’s not just my website. I actively seek out apps that allow you to select your own typography. So my RSS reader, Mastodon client, Notes app and writing app are all set to whatever font flavour I’m fancying this week. The primary reason I quit using iAWriter was because it doesn’t let you choose your own font, which was a huge shame because it’s awesome and bloody cheap too.

So if you happen to be browsing this blog and suddenly feel like you’ve unknowingly switched to a different one, don’t worry, it will just be me messing about again. Sorry about that.

Is anyone else this mad about typography?

#blogging #design