Photo of Bob Wertz in Craft and Draft Irmo

Bob Wertz is a designer, creative director and Ph.D. student living in Columbia, South Carolina. I’ve managed creative teams and corporate brands in higher education and insurance for most of my career. I’ve been married for almost 25 years and we have three kids, the oldest of whom just started college.

As a part-time Ph.D. student at the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, my research is focused on media effects and visual communication — especially related to brands and logos. My Google Scholar page doesn’t have much on it right now, but hopefully that will change soon.

I study logos and visual branding, so I tend to write about branding frequently. In addition to my scholarly research interests, I enjoy experimenting with typeface designs. My typefaces are distributed as part of my other site — SbBFonts — and sold through online vendors like MyFonts. For someone who claims to not care that much about social media, I write about social media a lot.

What’s with the fish?

I drew this little guy for a personal project that never came together, but I loved him so much, he became my logo. I’ve got many different expressions — both with and without glasses — and switch them out based on how I’m feeling. Right now, he’s ready for summer vacation.

🟢 Active Websites and Profiles

bobwertz.com / This site, hosted on Micro.Blog.

SbBFonts.com / The online home of all of my typeface designs.

sketchbookb.com / My original blog. I’m slowly shifting away from this Squarespace site. My blogging is now at bobwertz.com and my fonts are at SbBFonts.com.

Google Scholar / Not much right now, but more to come.

Fontstruct / Download experimental modular type.

MyFonts / Purchase some of my typefaces.

💚 Most Active Social

Micro.Blog / My primary “open” social home. This feed can also be followed on Mastodon at @bobwertz@bobwertz.com and is crossposted to Threads and Bluesky.

Instagram / I still post pictures, even if I don’t approve of Meta’s approach to privacy.

Threads / I like Threads and I think it keeps improving. We’ll see if Meta ruins it. I’m currently cross posting from Micro.Blog to Threads. I’ve turned on Fediverse sharing, so you can follow my Threads feed at @sketchbookb@threads.net.

Pokemon Go / Is Pokemon Go social media? I don’t know, but after my son got interested in Pokemon, I picked it back up. If you need to add friends to finish some tasks, my trainer code is 9175 9400 7445.

💛 Less Active Social

LinkedIn / It exists.

Bluesky / Interesting tech. Small community. Currently crossposting from Micro.Blog and checking in from time to time.

💔 Not Updated Social

Twitter / After 15 years, it’s no longer the service I loved. I’m done.

Facebook / I check in very rarely, mostly to see Memories.

Dribbble / I tried, but never got into it.

Where is bobwertz.com hosted?

This site is hosted by Micro.Blog. I’ve had an account ever since I backed the Kickstarter, even if I haven’t always been an active user. This current iteration of bobwertz.com was created in 2022.