I find it interesting how much of type is just kind of unspoken. You can say so much with it! And it's especially fascinating because it's not words, it's visual, but contrary to other visual art, it's not really even an image per se – it is just the way you display your words.
For instance, take the two words in the following figure. The thickness of the font (its weight) changes how the word ‘sounds’ on the screen. I'm just kind of fascinated by how the language for communicating that is totally unspoken, but so intuitive – I don't need to tell you that the one that read “quiet” does indeed read quieter – that comes more-or-less naturally! Something about the thickness of the lines, about the weight of the font, how it sits on the page, how much space it takes up, how open or closed the shapes of the letters are; something about all those things says so much. I'm excited to learn more about the world of type!
I saw a poster that was really beautiful. The
background was a photo of stars in our galaxy and the heading was the word Astronomy
in a sans-serif
typeface that so captured my attention that I was staring at it from a distance and watching it as it expanded to
take up more of my field of view.