typomania

“Of all the truly calamitous afflictions of the modern world, typomania is one of the most alarming and least understood. It was first diagnosed by the German designer Erik Spiekermann as a condition peculiar to the font-obsessed, and it has one common symptom: an inability to walk past a sign (or pick up a book or a menu) without needing to identify the typeface. Sometimes font freaks find this task easy, and they move on; and sometimes their entire day is wrecked until they nail it.” Simon Garfield; Confessions of a Typomaniac; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Sep 3, 2011. “[Arthur Mee] seemed almost to be in the grip of some kind of grapho- or typomania, simultaneously imposing and effacing himself through book, after book, after book, after book.” Ian Sansom; “Why Do I Cry?”; The Guardian (London, UK); Jul 21, 2007.