Posts in "Long Posts"

Some thoughts on the Cracker Barrel rebranding fiasco from a visual identity researcher

My Ph.D. research is focused on consumer response to logos and visual identity, so as you can imagine, I’ve talked about Cracker Barrel1 a lot over the last few weeks. Everyone has an opinion and is eager to share it. I held off writing this because the social media chatter was just chaotic, but now that things have calmed down, I wanted to share some quick thoughts based on my research.

People care about logos.

In my forthcoming study on logo attitudes with a sample of 1,000 American consumers2, over 60% of respondents agreed that if their favorite brand changed their logo, they’d want to know why. Cracker Barrel did a really poor job of explaining why they were changing their logo. It seemed to consumers like change for the sake of change and when challenged by consumers (plus a really strange political...

Digital permanence

A friend was digging through some college artifacts and found my 32-year-old business card from when I was an officer with Carolina Productions, the University of South Carolina student programming board. She sent me a picture and I noticed something funny: I still have the same email address.

I came to USC as a student in 1993 and got my first email address. I used that email address with a command line system until I graduated in 1997. At some point years later — I became an adjunct instructor and was able to reclaim that address and use it as an IMAP account. When I became full-time staff, I continued to use the same email address, this time connected to Microsoft 365.

I’ve had several home addresses and a couple of phone numbers since 1993. Those were connected to my physical location or my service provider so as I moved, things changed....

Two new typefaces for my 50th birthday

Yesterday I turned fifty. And to celebrate, I released a typeface for free. SbB Nineteen 75 is a fun little faux-stencil display font that is available for free. I had also planned to release a commercial font, but the scheduled release on MyFonts hasn’t happened yet. SbB Certiphica is my blackletter-inspired font that you will soon be able to purchase at MyFonts.

UPDATE: SbB Certiphica is finally available on MyFonts.

SbB Nineteen 75

Many people won’t pay for fonts — even professional designers. There are so many typeface designs all over the web that you can find with a quick Google search. Many of them aren’t fully featured. Some are pirated. Software like Canva offers many excellent default options. Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts provide high quality options. So I understand why people hesitate to pay for quality type. There is, however, a vast marketplace of unique designs out...

Scenes from a roadtrip

When Liz asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate my 50th birthday, I told her that I wanted to go to a Cubs game in Wrigley. I hadn’t been to Wrigley since 1988 when we moved back to South Carolina. Liz and I decided to make it happen, albeit a week before my birthday. Instead of dropping one image at a time, I figured I’d take more of a photo essay approach.

We dropped our kids off at Lutheridge in Arden, North Carolina. Our oldest is a counselor there and the kids have always been Christmas week campers. Once they were settled, Liz and I hit the road.

My three kids ready for camp Bob and Liz ready to start the roadtrip

On the way up, we visited Buc-ee’s for the first...

Setting prices for type

Years ago when I started selling my typefaces, my goal was to keep prices low. At the time, the prevailing wisdom on MyFonts was to set prices insanely high, then run massive promotions to lower the price to something reasonable. That seemed wrong to me. I just wanted to set the prices low to keep my typefaces affordable. Over the last decade or so, the situation has changed. MyFonts recommends that a single font start at $20. Apparently, if I set my prices too low, MyFonts won’t promote them. Subscription services are further complicating the pricing structure.

Setting prices for any artist is challenging, but I’ve noticed over time that most artists initially set their prices too low. I think I’ve fallen into that trap. I’m working on a new release right now1 and I’ve decided that I need to finally shift my pricing strategy. On August...

SbB Emote: A colorful faux emoji set built in Fontstruct

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was playing around with some new-to-me features and bricks in Fontstruct. After I finished SbB Roundabout1, I decided those techniques would work really well on a symbol font. So I started playing around with building a couple of little faux emoji. Then decided that I needed to add some color. And before long, I’ve built an adorable set of icons in Fontstruct… SbB Emote.

Characters from SbB Emote, a symbol font

I don’t know which my favorite is – either the robot or the minifig-inspired smiley. “Happy Frankenstein” is a classic, too. In total, the set has 63 glyphs. The build used over 140 different blocks and 6 colors. It’s probably the most complex Fontstruction I’ve made, since I normally like to keep it really simple.

Characters from...
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Adobe's Project Indigo a home run in tough lighting

I’ve been playing around with Adobe’s Project Indigo computational camera app recently. I’ve got an old, but completely functional iPhone 12 Pro. Tonight at a minor league baseball game, while we were waiting for the game to end and the post-game fireworks to begin, I decided to try Project Indigo out in some challenging light. First, from our seats on the first base line, I took a shot with the iPhone’s stock camera app:

The shot’s fine, but it’s clear the net was an issue. The iPhone processing made it seem far more prominent than it really was. I then tried to take the exact same composition with Project Indigo:

IDG_20250705_211832_526 Edited.

This looks a lot closer to reality. It handles the sky and the net better. You can’t really tell from this upload, but detail is much...

Embracing old tools in new ways + two new Fontstruct designs

Recently, I started playing around on Fontstruct again. The tool has evolved massively in the 17 years I’ve used it, but I interacted with it largely the same way — placing blocks on grids. I’ve been thinking about how I use design tools lately. I use apps like Photoshop and InDesign the same way I used them a decade ago. In general, this works fine, but I don’t really take full advantage of the advancements in the software. I’ve been trying to explore new features in Photoshop and Glyphs lately, and I decided I wanted to try out some of the features I haven’t used in Fontstruct, too. I just made two designs public: SbB Vertica and SbB Roundabout.

SbB Vertica. A bold all-caps display font consisting of vertical bands. I used the brick size and grid spacing filters to create the banding effect through the letters. To get...

Artificial intelligence with a side of seasoned fries

A brief “review” of Bo-Linda: Bojangles AI-based drive-thru ordering system

Bojangles is a fast food restaurant chain in the Southeastern United States that serves chicken and biscuits. Last year, I drove up to a Bojangles drive-thru in downtown Columbia, South Carolina and was greeted by a computerized voice. There were no signs indicating that they were using a new system, but it was clear that the voice wasn’t a human. I placed my order, the system asked for the drink on my combo, confirmed my order, told me my total and asked me to move forward. Quick and efficient.

Sbb bolinda.

A few months later, the Bojangles in Chapin near my daughter’s school switched to the same computerized system. I’d stop there occasionally to grab breakfast after dropping her off. This time, the system informed me that there was a 5-minute wait on my steak...

Beware hype without details

The other day, I referenced the hype leading up to the launch of a device in the early 2000s that was supposed to revolutionize personal transportation, but realized no one remembered the cautionary tail. Project Ginger was the creation of legendary inventor Dean Kamen. Word had leaked out about the secret project. Tech luminaries raved about it. Venture capitalists drooled at the potential. A 2001 article from Time was actually titled “Reinventing the Wheel” and captures the hype of the moment:

In a heartbeat, hundreds of stories full of fevered theorizing gushed forth in the press. Ginger was a hydrogen-powered hovercraft. Or a magnetic antigravity device. Or, closer to the mark, a souped-up scooter. Even the reprobates at South Park got into the act, spoofing Ginger in a recent episode–the details of which, sadly, are unprintable in a family magazine.

This revolutionary device was the Segway. Spoiler alert: it did...