Do aesthetics matter in writing?
It's interesting to see what beauty inspires in people.
Art is an expression of the heart. And whatever you may think about it, what some find beautiful definitely matters.
On a practical level, not everyone's opinion of what looks better will be the same. In fact, additions and alterations that improve the looks of writing are often just distractions from what's relevant.
But regardless of how practical an answer you'll find to the question, it's interesting to see what beauty inspires in people: a sense of awe, a desire to understand, an openness to hearing and understanding others, and an appreciation of detail and care.
And that's an inspiring and beautiful thing.
What about you? Do you care about aesthetics while reading? Does the font, text size, spacing, etc. matter? Or do you have a different opinion on aesthetics?
A definite yes to text size & font for reading, space for sentences. Most of my reading is done through Kindle, unless I'm on the web, So for Kindle I have the screen colour to a muted beige & the text black, as currently that is all that is offered but for the web, I always convert the page to Black & text to white. Photosensitivity with my eyes & skin now dictate this & I really wish that more websites would offer this option. Some sites that I click on to reverse the colours just don't do anything & it is so hard to read text when my eyes are burning through all that white space. Ther was a time when websites were crammed with information, so there was truly little white space & you just concentrated on the content but when 'it' was decided that there should be 'white-space' to make sites more aesthetically pleasing, my eyes started to complain.
And for the overall effect that some fonts have, some are incredibly beautiful to look at but not always practical to read. So, for a Logo, beauty & practicality should go together, yet how many times have I tried to read text on a website, in a physical letter where the text is so small (8pt or less), when there is no need. On a website you can enlarge it but for a physical letter, magazine or flyer, no hope of reading it, not even with a magnifying glass. Why do some companies feel this small text means they are somehow a more refined or an exalted company? Me, I'm all for practicality where possible! :)