The other day I was clicking around from one site to another and found a link to a site called i love typography. Later back on Webjam I was on one of Alberto's pages and found the site in a linklist, and I can understand Alberto's appreciation of this site. The person who loves typography is John D. Boardley, a graphic designer and writer from the UK who is now living in Japan. In trying to express just how much he loves typography, on his site John quotes German typographer and designer Erik Spiekermann, a co-founder of the amazing Metadesign firm with two friends. John quotes Erik:

"I can’t explain it; I just like looking at type. I just get a total kick out of it. Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, (..a part of the female anatomy..)  I just get kicks out of looking at type. It’s a little worrying, I must admit." (Spiekermann)

John Boardley says:

"and although, like many men, I sometimes look at (.. that part of the female anatomy, I probably spend more time looking at type."

Also being quite the type aficionado that I am, I can relate. I also have grown to appreciate my spines, counters, ascenders, legs, arms, etc. OK, I like the female form too. I used to belong to a group of graphic designer friends who enjoyed going to the movies and shouting out "Goudy!" "Simplex!!" during the opening or closing credits. We worshipped Saul Bass for what he contributed to the use of typography in film title design. I'm sure we all have similar stories; good typography is a delicious thing to admire. When I made the transition to the web and was doing hardly any print (and, before CSS 2) I felt as though I had lost a good friend. Sure you could do display type as a graphic, or even header type. Thank you, Flash. It was getting depressing - eight fonts, no leading, no tracking, no space after paragraph??? Glad that's about over.

OK. Moving this rambling post along to the point. John Boardley had an excellent post this month on 15 Excellent Examples of Web Typography. And excellent they are. If you are a type addict aficionado, looking at these sites satisfies the palette like a fine wine. As John says some of the sites chosen mimic the typography of print, others leverage web technologies, smart CSS, spacer gifs and other HTML tricks, or some combination to produce pages that are aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly, and easily navigable. He does not say whether the order of the list is by rank or not; in either case it's hard to choose from this list of great websites. I really do like number one on the list, A List Apart (ALA), which is something to behold. And it seems, these folks should know about good design, and good typography. It's a site for designers and developers who make websites and aside from the scrumptious layout, it's full of technical information, sample faces, book reviews, tutorials code, design, culture, etc. A List Apart is published by happy cog (NYC and Philadelphia), and their client list is some indication of the fact that the folks at happy cog and ALA know their stuff; they have designed pages and interfaces for Automattic (WordPress,) Blogger, AIGA, a progessional design association, and Advertising Age, among many others. But definitely bookmark John Boardley's list and visit the sites often for inspiration if you too, love typography!