Bob Wertz

An incredibly strange accident, but my wife and son are fine.

Two weeks ago, Liz and Ryan were driving to school early in the morning in a midst of a rain storm when a pine tree blew into their path and impaled their 2020 Buick Envision. The tree was about 24 feet tall, passed through the headlight, through the engine, through the firewall, through the dashboard and extended several feet into the passenger cabin, between the front headrests.

By some miracle, Liz needed only four stitches on her hand, caused by a ring that had to be cut off her thumb. And my 12-year-old son, who was in the front passenger seat, was completely untouched. Numerous people from firefighters and policemen to tow truck drivers and insurance adjusters have said they’ve never seen anything like it.

After people processes the shock of the accident, and the relief that everyone is okay, most people look at the picture of the interior and have the same reaction: “Wait, why didn’t the airbags deploy?”

The airbags did not deploy. And everyone has a theory about why.

• Theory #1: The airbags didn’t deploy because they failed. The airbags should have deployed, but must have been defective. Most people who believe this want me to share a picture of the damage with Buick and complain. “They should have to compensate you” is a common refrain. “You should sue."¹

• Theory #2: The airbags didn’t deploy because the tree missed the sensors. This theory was floated by the tow truck operator. Because the tree went through the headlight where there are no airbag sensors, the airbags didn’t deploy. In this scenario, the headlights are essentially a weakness in the car’s safety design.

• Theory #3: The airbags worked as designed. They should not have gone off because the accident wasn’t a typical head on collision. The car was immediately spun around in a lateral motion. The physics of the accident were weird and disorienting. It’s worth noting that my wife’s iPhone’s crash detection didn’t trigger either despite the fact that it was thrown to the floor from the center console. Several people have theorized that the force of the airbags could have made injuries worse.

My gut reaction is that the airbags behaved as designed, but I also could understand if the car wasn’t engineered to withstand such a strange, one-in-a-million accident.

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t know how airbag systems work. Most people don’t, but that hasn’t stopped us all from speculating. We imagine the airbag systems in modern cars to be this protective cloud that inflates around us, but I know it’s more complicated than that. We want to know why the airbags didn’t deploy because we want to be reassured that if it happens to us, we’ll be safe. But it’s just not that simple. There are too many variables.

We’ll never know why the airbags didn’t deploy, but Liz and Ryan are lucky to be alive and I’m incredibly thankful for that.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

I watched a couple of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight. The show was once one of my favorites and creator Joss Whedon could do no wrong. I loved Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I even watched Agents of SHIELD. But eventually, it came to light that Joss wasn’t the feminist he claimed to be, repeatedly cheated on his wife, and verbally abused many of the people he worked with, especially Charisma Carpenter.

Chocolate Cake for Breakfast is one of my favorite stand up routines. Bill Cosby’s family-inspired standup — long before the Cosby Show — was hilarious. But later in life, he was credibly accused of drugging and sexually assaulting several women.

Gill Sans is a legendary typeface, created by author, artist and typographer Eric Gill. I’ve worked for several companies for which Gill Sans was a key element of their corporate visual identity. But Eric Gill noted in his diary that he had numerous affairs, sexually assaulted two of his daughters… and his dog.

These are three examples, but they are far from the only examples. Many works of art and entertainment have been created by people who turn out to be despicable. How do you separate the creator from their work? Can you?

For me, I can separate Joss Whedon from Buffy and his other creations. He didn’t write every word and the show isn’t just him. The actors, writers, and staff brought the show to life and crafted the characters who I loved so much. But I have to admit that I’m now less likely to watch old episodes of Buffy, and I no longer hold the show on the pedestal that I once did.

It’s different for Bill Cosby and Eric Gill, though. Their creations are sole creative endeavors. As much as I might like Cosby’s old standup routines or Gill Sans, I can’t separate the creation from the person who created it. I don’t listen to old Cosby standup, and I don’t share it with my kids. I don’t use Gill Sans (or any Eric Gill typefaces) if I can avoid it. If I cite some of Eric Gill’s writings on typography like I did a couple of months ago, I include a comment that he was a horrible human being.¹

I’m not 100% sure this dichotomy makes sense, treating collaborative works differently than sole creations, but it’s where I am right now.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

Almost 100 years ago, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, typographer Eric Gill ¹ wrote “An Essay on Typography” and addressed the tension between art and industrialization:

“But tho’ industrialism has now won an almost complete victory, the handicrafts are not killed, & they cannot be quite killed because they meet an inherent, indestructible, permanent need in human nature.”

I’ve been thinking about this as the internet fills with AI-generated garbage and popular social media sites are monetized by hate.

Inherent. Indestructible. Permanent.

While Eric Gill never imagined the internet, I think his statement applies just as much to our modern world as it did in the Industrial Revolution. Much of the internet might become cheaply-produced, AI-generated, SEO-approved content, but people all over the world who care about creativity and writing will still produce great work and share it.

I’m probably being naive, but I’m still hopeful that the human need for creativity will overwhelm the capitalistic urge to industrialize content.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.