This post was originally posted on November 26, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Really, I’m fine.
Each week for a year, I’m designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 23.
My son Ryan turned 6 this week. And as I mentioned when I designed Jill’s Team Rainbow Unicorn shirt, I let the kids help design the shirt on the week of their birthday.
We locked in very quickly on what the shirt would say. Whenever Ryan falls, stumbles or gets hurt, he immediate shouts “I’m okay!” He started this when he was very little — pretty much when he started to talk. Once, when he fell and smashed out a tooth at daycare, the first thing he said to me when I picked him up was “I’m okay!” Sometimes, he starts saying “I’m okay!” when he starts to fall, before he hits the ground. It’s become like a catchphrase for him.
But what the shirt looked like, though… that was challenging.
At first Ryan wanted something really complicated, with paper airplanes crashing and little stick figures and a speech bubble with “I’m okay.” But I wanted to do something a little cleaner. We went around and around with other ideas. After all the back and forth, we settled on just having “I’M OK” on the shirt. Bold and straightforward.*
* One variation was a bold “I’M OK” all cracked up into pieces. And while it looked cool, and Ryan really liked it, it looked completely depressing, all shattered and broken. It really didn’t fit the message we wanted.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on November 19, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I would tell you, but it’s claus-ified.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 22.
I’ve always loved the phrase “Secret Santa.” Of course, it’s intended to be an exchange of gifts where no one knows who is giving them gifts. I’ve done Secret Santa’s at the office and I’ve volunteered to be a Secret Santa for a local children’s shelter. I’ve always fun buying presents for others.
But I’ve always thought that phrase sounded more like a comic book. Santa delivers presents on Christmas, but the rest of the year, he uses his magic to solve crimes. Something of a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Columbo. Or like the old Disney Channel animated show, Kim Possible. Maybe Santa is a secret agent in the off season, with an entire team based out of the North Pole. More 007 than Sherlock Holmes.
Or maybe my Secret Santa comic would follow Mrs. Claus as she moves from town-to-town solving murders. Sort of like Murder She Wrote, but with magic. And candy canes.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on November 11, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A tree as big as our car.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 21.
When my wife and I first got married, we lived in a little duplex in downtown Columbia. Christmas came and we needed to get a tree. I’d never had an artificial tree and was dead set against anything but a real tree.
We went to a little Christmas tree lot on Garners Ferry not too far from home and picked out the perfect tree. Perfect, except for the fact that we still had to get it home.
You see, we had two small cars, and this Christmas tree wasn’t fitting in either of them. The guy at the tree lot didn’t seem concerned. “Happens all the time.” So he broke out some twine and scissors and tied it to the roof of our Blue Ford Focus.
The sight was so ridiculous, that I drew a picture of it for our first Christmas card as a married couple. The tree tied onto the top of our Ford Focus was almost as big as the car. We got back to the duplex and discovered that the tree was too tall and it didn’t fit in the tree stand we had purchased. I had to go to the store to buy a saw to cut part of the bottom off.*
Once we got the tree up and decorated, it looked awesome. But the process… that was an adventure.
Eventually, I overcame my dislike of fake trees and now I don’t have to strap a tree to the top of my car, but Liz and I laugh about that first Christmas tree every year.
“Once we got the tree up and decorated, it looked awesome. But the process… that was an adventure.”
So for my first Christmas shirt for this year, I wanted to draw something that reminded me of our first Christmas together. I switched the car from a Blue Ford Focus — who wants a shirt with that car on it — to an old VW Rabbit. This was one of my first sketches that I completed when I started working on this project in the summer. I’ve been excited about this shirt idea for months.
Yesterday, I saw a similar shirt design floating around Facebook and I was kind of bummed that someone else had the same idea. But then I remembered the words of the attendant at the tree lot. “Happens all the time.” Most people probably do have a memory of strapping a too-big tree on top of a too-small car.
Shirts make great Christmas gifts. And I’m offering a 20% off promotion on all my shirts through the end of 2017. It should save you a few bucks per shirt. And Threadless is offering free shipping on orders over $40 through December 15 – just use the code “CHEER10cc62.”
* Also, that’s the Christmas we learned that taking the tree to the recycling place after Christmas is much tougher than bringing it home.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on November 5, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
It’s tough being in the middle.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 20.
When I was in high school, a friend asked whether I considered myself conservative or liberal. I told him that I was more of a moderate.
“You can’t be a moderate,” he said, “That means you don’t stand for anything.”
It’s tough being moderate in today’s hyper partisan world. But I think now, more than ever, moderates are the key to stabilizing our country.
Moderates are not the same thing as independents. Independent voters don’t claim one party or the other, but they’re views aren’t necessarily in the middle. For example, some independents think the Republican Party is too liberal.
Moderates on the other hand tend to be pragmatic. They look for ways to solve problems for their state or country. They work with people from other parties to craft solutions, not division. Moderates can be Republicans or Democrats (or independents), but they believe you can achieve more by working together than constantly demonizing each other. For many of our problems (but not all*), compromise is a solution to the issues that challenge America.
Today, with highly gerrymandered districts and campaigns financed increasingly by SuperPACs and the influential donors, it’s tough for a moderate to make it through the primaries, let alone win a general election.
On Facebook, my political beliefs are listed simply as “Angry Moderate.” It frustrates me that people can’t work together. I’m baffled by political parties that put their needs above the needs of the nation. And I’m completely pissed off by politicians who want everything to be about them, instead of realizing that they were elected to serve this nation, not rule it.
But the problem with moderates is that they typically don’t get angry. There is no moderate equivalent of the Tea Party. There isn’t a group of radical moderates that will band together to defeat a hyper partisan candidate in a primary. People don’t build moderate Super PACs. I can’t think of any billionaires wanting to fund moderate candidates.
When I decided to make an Angry Moderate shirt, the design approach was straightforward. Pick a sans serif designed by an American** and select a medium weight. Set the type in white and make it available on red, blue, grey and purple shirts. The result is appropriately the most subtle “angry” shirt you can make, perfect for a moderate.
* There are many things that you can’t compromise on. Basic human rights, for example.
** Proxima Nova Medium, designed by Wisconsin native Mark Simonson.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on October 29, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
“Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 19.
I was two when Star Wars came out in 1977. I don’t know when I saw the movie for the first time. Back then we obviously didn’t have DVDs or video-on-demand. We had to wait for the movie to be rereleased to the theaters. But I remember seeing the lightsaber dual between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, which ends with — SPOILER — Kenobi inexplicably sacrificing himself and disappearing.
“Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
— Obi-Wan Kenobi
Later his disembodied voice reminds Luke to use the force when destroying the Death Star. And of course, we find out later he becomes a “force ghost” and continues to guide and help Luke through the next two movies.
Star Wars (and all science fiction) has been a major influence on my life. Most of my toys growing up were Star Wars toys. And the rest were Legos that I used to make spaceships. But Star Wars — the original — started it all.
This December, the eighth Star Wars Saga film is released — The Last Jedi. I wanted to shirt to wear to the movie that subtly referenced the first film. And so we have Duel. A rough approximation of the lightsaber fight between Obi-Wan and Vader. Each frame is in a 2.35:1 ratio, the proportions that Star Wars was filmed in. And of course it ends with only one red lightsaber.
I’ll be wearing Duel for opening night of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. You can grab one, too, at my Threadless store.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on October 22, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A chance for family to gather and celebrate
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 18.
Once a year, we prepare an irrationally large meal. We make a turkey and use a stuffing recipe that’s been in the family for decades. We cook the same casseroles and side dishes that we have at Thanksgiving every year. My wife makes a Kentucky Derby Pie, which is like a giant cookie, because most of our crew won’t eat pecan or pumpkin pie.
We pull all of the special dishes and silverware out. China that belonged to my wife’s grandmother. Goblets that were gifts from our wedding. Serving dishes that my mom used. We use the fancy table cloth and set the table correctly, with all the silverware in the right spots.
“We use the fancy table cloth and set the table correctly, with all the silverware in the right spots.”
And then we gather around the table — with as much family as we can — and have the fanciest meal we’ll have all year. We tell stories about past get togethers and the time my wife went into labor right before we were about to have our Thanksgiving meal. We eat way too much and have plenty left over. We pack up the leftovers and send them home so that everyone can have turkey sandwiches for days.
Thanksgiving is a chance to be together with family, and for me, the big meal, with a formal place setting, is a perfect symbol of that. So this week’s shirt, Fancy, is in honor of Thanksgiving — and released early so you can wear one while you prepare your own Thanksgiving feast.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on October 15, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
It’s tough being an introvert in an extrovert world.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 17.
No one believes me, but I’m an introvert. Yes, I speak in front of crowds without much of a problem. I have no problem talking to people I know. And I would never describe myself as “shy.”
But I am 100%, absolutely an introvert.* Being around people all day wears me out. I struggle networking when I go to a conference or event where I don’t know anyone. Trying to talk to someone I don’t know at all can be paralyzing. After a full slate of morning meetings, I often need to go for a walk and decompress. I have no problem eating lunch by myself. Being in the middle of a large crowd can be overwhelming. And I need my alone time.
Because of my job and the challenges I take on, I have to be an extrovert sometimes. I have to work at controlling my introverted nature. Every extrovert behavior I have is learned. I do a good job of hiding how uncomfortable I am in social situations, but “being an extrovert” exhausts me. And I have to recharge with some significant alone time.
I’ve come to accept that being an introvert is a big part of being me, so this week’s shirt celebrates being an introvert in the quietest way possible. “Introvert” is a subtle design positioned in the lower corner of the shirt, almost like it’s hiding on the periphery of a really crowded conference in a vast hotel ballroom. You can buy a copy on Threadless.
* INTJ on Myers-Briggs, to be precise.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on October 8, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
The Reformation started 500 years ago this month with the posting of the 95 Theses.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 16.
I’m a big fan of Luther, and not just because I’m Lutheran.
Luther was a passionate communicator and he used the latest technology to share his message. The newly-invented printing press made it possible for his ideas to spread across Europe.
“Luther was a passionate communicator and he used the latest technology to share his message.”
Luther focused on grace. The idea that we are all sinful and imperfect people and that we can do nothing to earn salvation. Salvation, instead, was given to us when Christ died on the cross for our sins. Today I look at the state of Christianity and I can’t help but think it’s time for another Reformation. One that focuses on love and reflects on what it means to be Christian — and to act like a Christian — in today’s world.
This week’s shirt is Team Luther and features a “95” in blackletter-inspired* lettering. This is the perfect shirt for Lutherans who want to celebrate the Reformation in a really subtle way. Lutherans never want to talk about their faith, so with this shirt, if someone asks you what it means, you can then tell them about the Reformation and about being Lutheran. After all, they asked.
* Blackletter is a type style commonly associated with medieval Germany. When I had this shirt idea, I thought I knew what blackletter numerals looked like. When I did my research, I discovered that I was completely wrong. So I drew what was in my head, and didn’t base it on a historical model like I had planned. Hence, “blackletter-inspired.”
** Red is the color of the Reformation, and the traditional color of doors in aLutheran church.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on October 1, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’m not a big fan of Halloween, but I do like candy.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 15.
I’ll let you in on a little secret… I don’t really like Halloween. I’m sure I liked it when I was little, but as I got older, it never really meant anything to me. I don’t necessarily hate Halloween, but I am completely ambivalent about it.
My kids and my wife, on the other hand, love Halloween. They dress up and go trick-or-treating, and I follow along, wearing some sports jersey or something, and pretending like it was a costume of some sort.
I wanted to design a shirt as part of the project to wear around with the kids while they trick-or-treat. But my initial sketches were terrible.
Finally, I asked myself what I liked about Halloween? The answer, embarrassingly, is candy. The stores are full of candy that you can’t get the rest of the year. And my favorite of the Halloween candy is candy corn.
So celebrate candy — and candy corn — with my 15th shirt, Happy Candy Day. You can buy it on my Threadless store, and since it’s Fall, I’ve even made it available as a sweatshirt.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on September 24, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I struggle with the relationship between design and art.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 14.
My kids think that I’m a great artist. But most days, I wouldn’t call myself an artist. Designer, yes. Artist…. I’m not sure.
It’s probably a hangup from my youth, but to me, artists use natural media. Paint and canvas. Ink and paper. I feel completely lost with a paintbrush in my hand. While I work out ideas in a sketchbook, my tool of choice is a computer. And to be honest, I’ve always felt that makes me less of an artist.
I’ve talked to many designers my age who feel the same way. But younger designers often have no issue with the distinction between natural media and computer-based creations. They’ve grown up with computers as just another tool that artists use. It’s all art to them.
To complicate things further, as a designer in the business world, I’ve always been taught to base every aesthetic decision on a strategic need. Organizations struggle with subjective artistic decisions, but they love a problem solver. And so designers — like me — often downplay the “art” side of what we do in an effort to show the strategic value of design.
This shirt project is the first thing that I’ve done in a while that feels like an art project. The tools I’m using are the same ones I use when I’m working with clients. The process I’m undergoing is no different than my normal design process. But it feels different.
Maybe it’s that I’m creating for myself, or how I’m presenting the shirt project. Perhaps it’s because I’m not trying to justify my art with a strategic foundation. Whatever the reason, I’m now sure that the difference between artist and designer has nothing to do with the tools, and everything to do with perception.
* My wife thinks I’m an artist, too. And she reallydidn’t like this shirt idea.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on September 17, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
5 years ago this week, I released my first commercial typeface.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 13.
I released a couple of free typefaces in the early days of Sketchbook B. But five years ago, I took a big step and released my first commercial typeface, Powerlane.
Powerlane is a massive typeface family. 20 different fonts. And when you count all of the letters and numbers, foreign characters and special OpenType alternates, the family has more than 8,000 glyphs.
I’m proud of Powerlane. I spent years designing Powerlane and learning all about the process of finalizing a commercial typeface. And even though I haven’t sold a ton of copies, I have sold copies on five continents — North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia — which I think is pretty amazing.
I’ve released four other commercial fonts since Powerlane: Valdes Clarendon, Power Grid 2.0, Intermodal and Saluda. You can buy all of them on Creative Market. Powerlane and Valdes Clarendon are available on MyFonts, too. You can check out all of my type designs on my Fonts page.
Also, a quick side note… With the release of the 13th shirt, I’m a quarter of the way through my 52 Shirts project. 39 to go.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on September 10, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
We personify the things we cannot control.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 12.
As I write this, Hurricane Irma is about to tear through Florida after devastating the Caribbean. I live in South Carolina, and earlier this week, we were in the path of this beast of a hurricane. Gas stations ran out of fuel. Grocery stores rushed to stock enough bread and bottled water. Irma turned west and now, we’ll likely avoid a direct hit.
But I also think that we personify these storms because it’s somewhat comforting to give a friendly, familiar name to something so incredibly terrifying. Irma, Harvey, Katrina, Andrew, Hugo… These were monstrous, deadly destructive storms, but each of them with a friendly, approachable name. We talk about them as though they are our next door neighbor. And it seems to me that the friendlier the name, the more dangerous and unpredictable the storm is.
“But I also think that we personify these storms because it’s somewhat comforting to give a friendly, familiar name to something so incredibly terrifying.”
So this week’s shirt is a reminder that no matter how friendly a storm name sounds, it’s still a dangerous force of nature. You can order “Never trust a storm with a friendly name” from my Threadless store. And stay safe out there.
* Bob was retired after the 1991 storm wrecked havoc in New England.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on September 3, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I designed this week’s shirt with my daughter.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 11.
My middle child, Jill, turns 10 this week. As part of my 52 Shirts project, I decided I would design a shirt for each child on their birthday.
It was easy to choose what to design for Jill. The girl is obsessed with unicorns. So I designed a unicorn the way I would design a unicorn. Angular and modern.
To be honest, it completely sucked.
And that’s when I had an epiphany. Instead of designing a shirt for Jill, I needed to design a shirt with Jill. I threw out my crappy unicorn design and started to talk to Jill about what she really wanted in a unicorn shirt. We sketched together at the dining room table. We talked about colors and style. She taught me all about “kawaii” style (which apparently is Japanese for cute). We drew different versions of kawaii unicorn eyes. And the end result — our “Team Rainbow Unicorn” shirt — is one of my favorite creations ever.
(One fun note, the horn has ten segments because she’s turning 10. That was my wife’s idea. This shirt is a complete team effort.)
I’ve always said that I don’t — that I can’t — design cute things. And yet, this unicorn is completely adorable. I could never design something like this on my own. I needed Jill’s help to break out of my rigid style. It’s just another reminder to me that I’m a better designer when I partner with other creative people.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on August 26, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I hate my handwriting.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 10.
After I finished 2nd grade, we moved from North Carolina to Illinois. The move went smoothly, with one notable exception. In North Carolina, they taught cursive in 3rd grade. In Illinois, they taught cursive in 2nd grade. I didn’t know how to write in cursive, yet I was required to write everything in cursive in my new school.
Mrs. Schmidt was nice and had a solution for this problem… I would learn cursive over the first two weeks of school. A couple times a day, I’d go over to a desk off to the side and do cursive worksheets. And it worked, kind of. I learned the basics of how to make the letterforms, but I never became comfortable. My cursive handwriting never became fluid or natural. It always looked like the writing of a 3rd grader.
Eventually, I moved on from elementary school and my teachers no longer cared if I wrote in cursive. I settled on my current style — mostly block printing with some cursive connectors thrown in for speed. I became more comfortable, but I hated my handwriting.
When I was young, having to write handwritten notes to people always stressed me out because I thought people would judge my juvenile writing. I still don’t write long notes in greeting cards because it makes me anxious. In high school and college, I actively destroyed my signature and made it messier because I thought it looked “older.”
“I still don’t write long notes in greeting cards because it makes me anxious.”
A few years ago, I discovered fountain pens — and better writing utensils. Writing with nice pens and pencils changed my writing. When I wrote with an extra fine nib, my handwriting became small and neat. And with a 1.1 mm stub nib, my handwriting was looser and more fluid. I still don’t love my handwriting, but I’m less embarrassed about writing notes to people.
This week’s shirt is Cursive. And it’s my handwriting. I used a limited edition Blackwing Volume 73 pencil — one with a really soft lead. And I wrote the word cursive in my sketchbook several hundred times.* I eventually found one I liked to scan and convert.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on August 20, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
The internet is shaping who we are.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the ninth design of fifty-two.
The first reference to “You are what you eat” was in the 1860s. But today, I think it’s more accurate to say that in the age of the internet, we become what we consume. Our attitudes, our temperament and even our well-being is significantly influenced by what media we consume online.
I watched last weekend as the events in Charlottesville unfolded. And there were Nazis — Nazis! — marching with torches on a college campus. And then followed by more violence the next day and the death of a counter protester.
Look, I’m not going to blame the internet for Nazis. They existed long before the internet. But I think many of the young adults that showed up in Charlottesville were fueled and amplified by what they saw online. Or more precisely, what they chose to seek out online.
The Nazis are an extreme example of this though. Today, I feel like all of us are shaped by the media we consume. If you only watch Fox News… CNN… conspiracy websites… Twitter… cat videos… hate-filled rhetoric… you slowly become what you consume.
“…having a well-rounded media diet makes us all better, happier and healthier people.”
The internet is full of content. Funny and serious. Factual and false. Some articles and videos are thoughtful and well reasoned. Some content is shallow and inflammatory. I’m not saying you need to only watch serious, long form content from reputable sources. But I am saying that having a well-rounded media diet makes us all better, happier and healthier people.
This week’s shirt is “We become what we consume.” And yes, the lettering is reversed and upside down on purpose. Our eye flips everything it sees.The brain then corrects it for us.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on August 13, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Every great teacher is a bit of a renegade.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the eighth design of fifty-two.
School is starting back.
I’ve been lucky to have some amazing teachers through the years in a wide range of subjects and at pretty much every level from elementary school through college. Without exception, every impactful teacher I’ve had was a little unconventional in their teaching methods. They looked for the most powerful way to reach their students, even it meant pouring an absurd amount of time and energy into kids who — let’s be honest — probably didn’t appreciate it at that time.
That was a simpler time. Before constant testing and obsessive parents.* It occurs to me that those great teachers — the ones who were just a little unconventional when I was in school — would be downright renegades in today’s education world.
So to salute those great teachers, this week’s shirt is all about being a renegade in the classroom. A pirate flag for teachers that aren’t afraid to do whatever it takes to teach their students.
* Yes, I know parents have always been obsessive, but today’s parents seem worse by historic standards.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on August 6, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Getting the most out of a sheet of paper
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the seventh design of fifty-two.
Sometime in late elementary school, browsing through a Waldenbooks* at the Fox Valley Mall, I stumbled upon a book about paper airplane design. 30 Designs for the Paper Pilot taught you how to build some (absurdly) complex paper airplanes.
The author, Peter Vollheim, was a pilot and created airplanes using regular paper, card stock, index cards, business cards, straws and other common materials. He tested his designs with wind tunnels and then provided detailed instructions for how to build them at home. He got the most out of his materials and the paper airplanes he designed flew far and straight. I eventually purchased Vollheim’s two other books, 30 More Planes for the Paper Pilot and The Paper Ace.
And while these books helped me build some wicked paper airplanes, I think they heavily influenced my design style, too. Most people who are interested in paper folding start with origami — the art of paper folding. But while I played around with some simple origami, I was much more intrigued by the functionally of paper airplanes.
Early in my design career, many of my creations contained interesting paper folding. Looking back, I can see the influence that Vollheim’s books had on my thought process. Even though they didn’t fly, my folded paper designs were absolutely intended to get the most possible out of a sheet of paper, just like Vollheim’s airplanes. ( I don’t fold paper as much as I used to… maybe it’s time to get back to my roots.)
I was disappointed — but not surprised — to find that Vollheim’s three books were out of print. And while you can still get used copies of the books on Amazon, I was delighted to discover Vollheim has a web site were you can still purchase all three books as a PDF. If you are interested in the aerodynamics of paper airplanes, you’ll love these books.
* Or maybe it was a B. Daltons. I miss mall book stores.
** Pretty much every color but white and orange.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on July 30, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Another year older
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the sixth design of fifty-two.
This week, in 1975, I was born. My birthday isn’t a momentous one this year. I’m just another year older and a little more gray.
I love when I was born — I got to see the advent of the personal computer, the growth of the internet, comic book movies that don’t suck, iPhones and digital cameras. But I also remember typewriters, card catalogs, Superfriends, rotary phones and working in a darkroom.
When I was younger, it was significant work and investment to share a creation. And copyright was one way that an artist protected that investment. Today, it’s simple for a creator to publish their own writing online, share thoughts on social media, sell music and even offer t-shirts that are printed on demand. And it’s easier than ever for others to steal your creations and profit off of them.
Copyright was relatively straightforward when I was born, but the changes in technology are forcing an evolution in how we look at intellectual property rights. Maybe copyright is like the technology of my youth — obsolete like a rotary phone? Or maybe it just needs to evolve to better protect artists in a digital age while preserving the freedom to create. Forty years from now, I imagine copyright law with be radically different.
This week’s shirt is Copyright 1975 and you can buy one from Threadless. Of course, it only makes sense to purchase one if you were born in 1975.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on July 23, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
There’s something special about gathering around a campfire.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the fifth design of fifty-two.
Some of my happiest memories are at one, very specific place: Lutheridge, a camp in Arden, North Carolina.
As a young child, I attended as a camper. I made lifelong friendships as a high school camper. And then, after my freshman year of college, I was beyond excited to be a counselor.
And promptly blew my knee out.*
My summer ended very quickly. One week to be exact. I had to have reconstructive surgery on my right knee. I was devastated and heartbroken.
I returned the next summer and this time, made it through the summer unscathed. I had a great summer — a challenging summer — but an amazing time working with kids. But that was my last summer at Lutheridge. The following year, I worked as an orientation leader at the University of South Carolina and then, I graduated and entered the work world.
A couple of years ago, my girls started to attend Lutheridge as campers. And they fell in love with camp, just like I did when I was young. It was fun to see the camp experience through their eyes. To hear them talk and share their experiences.
This summer, our entire family is headed to camp. My wife had never spent time at any summer camp and our youngest is too young for regular camp, so the three of us are heading to a program for families. The girls are doing their usual camp activities, but we’ll all be there at camp for an entire week. The whole crew is excited and I’m really looking forward to being a “camper” again.
I wanted to design a shirt for camp. Something that captured my love of Lutheridge and my history with the place. When I was young, I remember Lutheridge’s logo was a campfire.** It was emblazoned on more than one shirt I had growing up. So this week’s shirt is a stylized campfire, in honor of the camp that I love.
* It’s a little more complicated than that. I injured my knee during orientation during a game of elbow tag. Then finished off my ACL during the first week of camp with a musical, noncompetitive version of duck-duck-goose… on wet grass.
** The logo is actually still a campfire, but different than the one I remember…
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on July 16, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
The power of a tangible object
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the fourth design of fifty-two.
My daughters got Fuji Instax cameras for Christmas. The idea of an instant print was a novelty to them.* We’ve documented their lives with digital cameras. We bought our first DSLR the month our oldest child was born so our kids have always been able to see pictures immediately after they are taken. But an instant print is different and they fell in love with taking pictures, trading shots and labeling them.** Photos have largely become digital things for this younger generation of kids. They didn’t grow up with shoeboxes full of prints and negatives. It was fun to see them interact with photos as physical objects.***
As I looked at the stack of pictures they took, I noticed the familiar white frame of an instant print. There are a wide range of sizes and proportions of instant prints, but almost all of them share a similar, logical structure. A white frame around the top, outside edges and a wide bottom containing a packet of chemicals that develop the image. (The wide bottom also doubles as a place to caption your image.)
I guarantee you that the engineer that created the shape of the print had no idea that he was creating such an iconic shape. He was simply solving a problem. Yet, the iconic shape became so valuable, that when Polaroid declared bankruptcy, the shape, proportions and size of the most famous instant film print size — the Polaroid 600 — was part of the intellectual property that was sold to a holding company for licensing agreements.**** The design of the frame had more perceived value than the business they were in.
This week’s shirt is an instant print frame. Just the frame and nothing in it. For me, the instant print frame serves as a reminder that in today’s digital world, tangible things still have magic.
* I pondered the future of the instant print in a smartphone world in a post in 2008. Funny to see me describe how awful the first iPhone camera was. My iPhone 7+ camera is completely amazing.
** They were less enamored with having a limited number of shots and the cost of the film.
*** Now I desperately want an instant camera. Either the new Fujiflim Instax SQ10 or the Leica Sofort, which is a glorified Instax Mini 90, but with Leica style. And I’ve always wanted a Leica.
**** Which is why everyone who uses the instant print shape — including me — avoids using the exact proportions and size of an actual Polaroid print.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on July 9, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Celebrating a total solar eclipse this August
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the third design of fifty-two.
I wanted to design a shirt to commemorate the occasion. I looked at a couple of different approaches, but settled pretty quickly on an abstract visual representation of the sun’s corona. During a total solar eclipse, you can directly observe the corona around the moon’s shadow. As an added bonus, the 21st is also our wedding anniversary, and I felt like the shape of the corona was slightly evocative of a wedding ring.
My sketches and my first draft had more text in and around the corona, but I fell in love with just having the date positioned off to the side.
I originally planned to release this design the week of the eclipse, but I wanted to give people plenty of time to purchase it and have it in time for August 21. It’s available in a range of dark colors, including a really sweet looking black and gray baseball shirt.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on July 2, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A simple twist on the stars and stripes
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the second design of fifty-two.
In honor of the Fourth of July, I wanted to design a shirt that’s a little patriotic… with a twist. I wondered what the stars and stripes would look like if it had designed with modern design sensibilities and restrictions. Is it refined and simple? Can it be easily reproduced in small sizes? Will it work as a social media icon?
How minimalist can you make the American flag and still evoke the feeling of the stars and stripes?
And so my second design is America the Minimal, a simple take on the stars and stripes. But what started as a funny little speculative redesign triggered some thoughts about redesigns, minimalism and more.
First some history about the American flag. I knew that the Betsy Ross origin story was widely considered a myth, but I didn’t know much about who was credited with designing the original U.S. flag. Turns out a guy named Francis Hopkinson is credited with the design of the flag and many other American symbols. He actually requested payment from the Congress in the form of a “quarter cask of wine” in exchange for designing the American flag, the Great Seal of the United States and other symbols. Long story short, he never got paid.*
The current flag has been in use since 1960 and is actually the 27th version. The number of stars have changed as states have been added. In early years, there was no prescribed structure for the stars so it varied based on who was sewing the flag. Only the number of stars was mandated. (The original stars had six points, but it turns out five-pointed stars are easier to produce.)
As I sought to create a minimalist version of the U.S. Flag, I started with the stripes. My first drafts had four stripes, but that didn’t look quite right. The regular American flag has an odd number of stripes and the top and bottom stripes are both red. Three stripes were too few. And while both five and seven stripes worked nicely, I eventually settled on five stripes for my design.
The stars were a challenge because they don’t work well at small sizes. My first thought was to use one big star in the blue field, but a single star was too prominent. (Plus, it looks like the Liberian flag.) As I was driving home one afternoon, I noticed that when you look at a flag flying at a distance, the stars almost disappear into the blue field. And after experimenting for a little bit, I came to the conclusion that maybe the best solution to keep things minimal was to eliminate the stars and go with a plain blue field.
And what I ended up with is a minimalist version of the American flag with five stripes and a plain blue field. I think it successfully feels like a more simple version of the American flag and not the flag for another country.
As I wrapped up the shirt design, a couple of lessons resonated with me.
First, it would be impossible to redesign the American flag in today’s environment. As I focused on designing a “new” flag, it occurred to me how frustrating this process would be. Every single item I removed or changed had meaning. And as I changed those things, every alternation would be scrutinized. I can hear the comments now…
Why aren’t there 13 stripes? You know, the ones that stood for the 13 original colonies. Do you no longer care about history? And where are the stars? Removing the stars is a sign that you care more about the federal government than the states. This is clearly the work of socialism! This is clearly the work of facism!
No one would be happy. And as I thought about it, redesigning the American flag, or any U.S. political symbol, has to rank as one of the worst, most impossible jobs in the design world. Which is why the flag won’t ever change. (I might argue that one reason Puerto Rico won’t become a state is that there are people who would be uncomfortable adding a 51st star.)
But here’s the bigger takeaway for me… Sometimes, minimalist solutions are unnecessarily limiting. In this case, it was a fun exercise, but every revision took away meaning. The 13 stripes do stand for the 13 original colonies. The 50 stars stand for each of the states in the union. Slavishly removing those things in an effort to make it more simple destroys the meaning of the symbol. And the quest to be minimal adds an additional challenge: with every detail you remove, the design becomes less unique. The “new” flag looks more like other country and state flags. One benefit of more complex designs is that they often seem more original than simpler ones.
Get your America the Minimal shirt over at my Threadless store. I’ve included kids shirts for this week and a long sleeve “baseball” tee. Remember that for the first week a new design is on sale, the price is discounted, so get your shirt this week and save some money.
One additional note. I realize that it’s too late to order shirts for the 4th of July this year. For future seasonal shirts, I’ll release them earlier so you’ll be able to get them in time.
* That’s what you get for doing spec work, I guess… even in the 1790s.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on June 25, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
One shirt a week for an entire year
I was sitting in a coffee shop, hyped up on way too much caffeine. I’d taken the day off to spend some time thinking about what I wanted to do with Sketchbook B for the next year. What side projects did I want to tackle?
I pulled out my new sketchbook, a massive Leuchtturm 1917 Master Slim that I purchased at the Atlanta Pen Show. I’ve been working on a new typeface for the last year or so and I intended to make some progress. But as started to sketch, I realized that most of my recent sketchbooks are filled with notes and smaller, less ambitious doodles. I struggled to fill the (admittedly massive) pages and this bothered me. As I sat there sketching, trying to clear the cobwebs off my creativity, I drew a simple little doodle of a coffee cup and thought, that’d look good on a shirt. And for whatever reason, that opened the floodgates.
So there, in the middle of the Wired Goat in Chapin, I decided on my next project. I quickly started working out the details. Researching production options. Sketching ideas. I continued to work on the concept for the next couple months. And now, I’m finally ready to launch my new side project…
I’m going to design a new shirt every week for a year.
I’ll post a new shirt for purchase on Sundays with different design styles and content each week. One week, it might be something silly. Another week, it could be an invented restaurant or coffee shop. A fake band. Something seasonal. Each week will be different, but every Sunday, there will be a new shirt inspired by the world around me.
Every design will be accompanied by a blog post explaining the story behind the design. The post is a major part of the project. I’m looking forward to writing about my creations as much as I am designing them. My hope is that these will be more personal than my usual posts. I want to focus on the thoughts behind the design, my creative process and reflect about my experiences as a designer.
So why shirts?
The shirt sketch that sparked this project was completely random, but the more I thought about it, designing shirts was the perfect challenge. I wanted to create something tangible. I didn’t want to just build an image for sharing on social media. I needed a challenge that would give me a defined canvas and a set of restrictions.
I briefly considered designing coffee mugs instead of shirts. I love coffee and hot tea. And the idea came to me in a coffee shop. But what would I do with 52 mugs? My kitchen cabinets aren’t big enough. And while 52 shirts are a lot, too, I don’t have to order all the shirts for me. I can order shirts for my wife and my kids. Everyone loves shirts.
I decided to use an on-demand service for printing my shirts. All the shirts will be available on my new Sketchbook B Threadless store. There are numerous on-demand shirt printing services and they are all very similar. After (way too much) research, Threadless seemed like the best storefront for the project I wanted to create.
One of the benefits of on-demand, direct-to-garmet printing is that each shirt design can be available in a range of colors and shirt types. Every design will come in three styles: a lower cost classic t-shirt, a super soft men’s tri-blend shirt, and a women’s tri-blend shirt. I’ll also offer other versions when they make sense… long sleeves, kids shirts, sweatshirts and more.
I’ll be honest, I don’t expect to sell a lot of shirts. Some of my designs may have broad appeal, but a couple will probably just appeal to me. And that’s okay. I’m not doing this to make a ton of money. It’s more about the creative process.
I’m excited about the project. I’m sketching more than I have in years. I’ve already got a rough schedule for the next couple months and literally hundreds of concepts in my sketchbook waiting to be refined. And in addition to the shirts themselves, I’ve got some ideas with what to do at the end of the project with my collection of 52 shirts. I’m looking forward to where the project takes me.
If you are interested in the project and like the shirts, please follow along and share on social media. Let me know what you think. You can reach out on Twitter or Micro.Blog.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on June 25, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A new side project to postpone creative extinction.
01/52: Designasaur
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the first design of fifty-two.
Almost 20 years ago, I attended a lecture at the University of South Carolina School of Art hosted by the Columbia Communicating Arts Society. I was a young designer and trying hard to network with other designers and CCAS was the hub of the Columbia creative community at the time. The speaker was a designer from Atlanta, Bob Wages from Wages Design. Like most designers who came to speak at events like this, Bob showed his work and talked about his creative process. I distinctly remember him mixing in a fair amount of career and business advice, giving tips about how small the design world was and how important it was to be fair to everyone you worked with. But one offhand comment has stuck with me since that lecture…
Bob Wages introduced me to the concept of the “designasaur.”
A designasaur is a designer that never evolved. Someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t adopt new technologies or new styles. A creative who hasn’t embraced the changing world and risks “extinction.”
Since the advent of desktop publishing and the creation of the internet, the design industry has grown and changed in amazing and unbelievable ways. Technology continues to evolve at an absurdly rapid pace. It’s hard — maybe impossible — to keep up with it all. The struggle to figure out and incorporate new tools and trends is constant. And it feels sometimes like extinction is just around the corner.
Almost two decades later, I realize that all my side projects have been about continuing to grow as a designer and to avoid becoming a designasaur. Trying out new challenges and delaying creative extinction as long as I can. I figured the perfect shirt to kick off my new project was a designasaur shirt.
I sketched out my designsaur* over the course of a couple of days in pencil. Once I’d refined the sketch, I took a photograph of it with my iPhone and then reconstructed it in Illustrator on my Mac. This is a pretty normal workflow for me and that familiarity actually bothered me a little. For this new side project, should I put more restrictions on the production process? Should I only use non-Adobe apps like Affinity Designer? Should I actually use the sketch instead of rebuilding it in a vector format? In the end, I decided that the challenges of production mattered less to me than the process of creation. I’m okay relying on more comfortable production processes, especially at the beginning of this project. I hope to extend a little more out of my comfort level on the production process as the project continues.
If you are interested in the project and like the shirts, please follow along and share on social media. Let me know what you think. You can reach out on Twitter and Micro.Blog.
* My 9-year-old says I should name him Bob. Or Inky.
** It’s my wife’s favorite kind of t-shirt.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
