Bob Wertz Profile Photo

Bob Wertz

Type designer, researcher and Ph.D. student in Columbia, South Carolina

Long Posts

    ∞

    The Red Lobster near me has closed, and I’m kinda sad.

    Red Lobster has been struggling through financial troubles for a while and the chain is the process of being sold. Today, they announced that the location closest to me in Cayce, South Carolina has closed. I’ve eaten at that Red Lobster once in the last five years and it was an unmitigated disaster. We waited forever for a table and the food wasn’t great.

    But my grandparents and parents loved Red Lobster. There is a Red Lobster in Aiken that my grandparents always took us to. While I was in college, we had many family dinners at the Cayce Red Lobster. I think we went there after I graduated from college. When Liz and I got married, we lived in Cayce, and sometimes, you want some fried shrimp and Cheddar Bay Biscuits after church.

    Alas, I won’t miss my local Red Lobster, but I am sad to see it go.

    Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

    ∞

    Papaya ≠ Orange?

    My daughter has gotten us all into F1. Jill’s become a hard core McLaren fan. My wife seems to have settled into cheering for George Russell and Mercedes. Ryan is a Max Verstappen fan.

    As for me, I tend to be pulling for McLaren. Which causes a problem. Their color is papaya… which is orange.

    I don’t do orange. As a South Carolina Gamecocks fan, orange is the color of all of our rivals… from in-state Clemson to SEC foes Florida and Tennessee. (And I’m not just a SC fan, I’m also manage the schools visual branding.)

    Jill’s convinced herself that papaya and Clemson orange are different colors. She’s decked out in papaya right now celebrating Lando’s Dutch Grand Prix victory. She’s right – the colors are different – but it’s still tough for me. We’ll see if I come around to McLaren papaya, or if I continue my orange ban.

    Looking forward to seeing how Lando and Oscar do in the Italy Grand Prix next weekend.

    Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

    ∞

    Then: 8.24.24

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    The start to the school year continues. I had my first grad school class of the semester this week. Looking forward to learning more about qualitative methods. Liz starts her Ph.D. class this week and the kids' school is in full swing.

    Feels

    • Tired. After the summer, getting back into a routine has been tough. Waking up earlier. Going to bed earlier. Longer drive and more traffic. It’s exhausting, but I know it will get better.
    • Grateful for some cooler weather. Most summers in Columbia, South Carolina are hot, but this summer has been brutal. I’m looking forward to being able to comfortably hang out on our back deck and enjoy some cooler weather.
    • I’m pumped up about the Harris/Walz ticket. Let’s go.

    Health

    • Did a great job eating healthier this week. Really proud of myself for planning ahead and bringing my lunch to work.

    Projects

    • SbB Diskette was approved by MyFonts.
    • My academic article is still officially under peer review.
    • I’ve got a contract type design consulting job that’s going to take a bunch of time over the next few weeks. I’m excited to continue working on it.
    • Lots of grad school reading is going to eat into my project time.

    Entertainment

    • Made progress on Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse.
    • I found a Spades iOS app on Apple Arcade. I’m addicted.
    • F1 is back. Watched qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix this morning. Looking forward to the race tomorrow.

    See previous “Now” pages in the “Then” category.

    ∞

    Then: 8.17.24

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    Liz and the kids are back in school. We moved our oldest into an off-campus apartment. Starting to figure out everyone’s schedules. It’s been a busy week.

    Feels

    • Our oldest, Norah, moved into her own apartment this week. And while she lived in the residence hall last year, she’s now really out on her own. Proud of her, but it’s always a little bittersweet to watch the kids grow up.
    • Back to heading to the coffee shop to work every weekend with my daughter. She has so much AP work to do, that she likes to go to Starbucks to study. I usually have work to do, too. So we go together. I don’t love the stress that comes with the work, but I adore having the time with Jill.
    • Continue to be both nervous and excited about the future of this country. I think the wild swings in the news cycle affect me more than I’d like to admit.
    • First day of class for me on Wednesday this week. Looking forward to taking something a little different.

    Health

    • Did a decent job trying to eat better this week. Need to plan ahead a little bit better when we have a busy schedule.
    • Didn’t really work out this week, but did move my daughter into a second floor apartment with no elevator. (And most of it was moved up from the lower parking level.) Lots of stair flights.

    Projects

    • I’ve got one font submitted to Monotype for approval to sell on their marketplace.
    • My academic article is officially under peer review.
    • I need to set up a new web site for my merchandise. Might work on that today.

    Entertainment

    ∞

    Then: 8.10.24

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    Reasonably good week. We’re getting our oldest ready to go back to college. I’ve started my plan to be healthier at 50 than I was a 40 — working out a little bit and eating better. Lifestyle change is hard.

    Feels

    • Had someone be incredibly rude to me at work this week. And it really bothered me for a day or two.
    • Tim Walz. My goodness. I didn’t know politicians like this get elected. What a breath of fresh air. I’m all in on bringing joy back. I’m tired of the doom and gloom.
    • Work on the Ph.D. will continue soon. A couple of weeks left until classes start. I’m taking one class this semester — a qualitative research class in the College of Education. Will be a bit of a change from my normal comms classwork.

    Health

    • Started this week trying to make better food choices. Was mostly successful. I do feel better when I eat better.
    • Rediscovered some old fitness apps that I’ve tried in the past. Dusted them off and trying to build a workout rhythm.

    Projects

    • I’ve decided to rename one of my new fonts because of a very minor possibility that the name infringes on an existing trademark. Naming fonts is harder than naming children.
    • I’ve got a few other fonts in the works, but I don’t know how much progress I’ll make when classes start back.

    Entertainment

    • More Olympics. Volleyball. Water Polo. Basketball. Some track and field.
    • Still reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. I didn’t actually pick it up this week, but it’s still the book beside my bed.
    • F1 is still on summer break. ☹️
    ∞

    Then: 8.2.24

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    I celebrated my 49th birthday this week. My kids have an annual tradition where they bake a cake for me, usually with a high degree of difficulty. This year, they attempted to make a Borg Cube from Star Trek.

    As I turn 49, I’m looking ahead to 50 next year. I’ve decided that I want to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40. I need to loose weight, eat better and be more active. Basically a lifestyle change. I’m going to add a health category to my weekly Now page updates.

    Still wondering if I should post these on Sundays instead of Saturdays.

    Feels

    • Uncomfortable. The air conditioning went out in my office this week. That’s never something you want in Columbia in the summer.
    • One of my friends is leaving for a job at another school. I’m bummed, but it’s a great opportunity for her. Just a lot of changes at the office this summer.
    • I continue to be impressed with Kamala Harris’s campaign so far. I forgot what hope felt like.
    • Tired. My teacher wife reported to school this week, and the alarm started going off an hour earlier. Ugh. Need more sleep.

    Health

    • Laying the groundwork for my lifestyle change. Getting apps ready to track, planning diet and exercise changes. Trying not to over do it. I’m giving myself a year to make this change.
    • I’m starting on Monday, because there’s still cake and other goodies in the house from my birthday.

    Projects

    • SbB Danceflr is available on MyFonts now.
    • Continuing to work on some other font ideas. I have several designs that I never finished, so I’m working toward wrapping those up and submitting them to MyFonts for sale.
    • Heard back from the publication I submitted my journal article to and I need to make a couple of minor changes before it heads to peer review. So that’s promising.

    Entertainment

    • Lots of Olympics. Surfing. Basketball. Gymnastics. Swimming. Handball. Beach Volleyball. Regular Volleyball. I think I’ve watched at least some coverage every day this week.
    • Still reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Slowly. I’m struggling to get into it, even though I loved the first two books.
    • F1 is on summer break. ☹️
    ∞

    Then: 7.27.2024

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    Just had a relaxing week of vacation with just my wife and me. The kids were at summer camp for the week so we decided to celebrate our 25th anniversary early up near Asheville. We had a great time, but it’s going to be hard going back to reality on Monday.

    Feels

    • I feel refreshed. I really needed to take some time off from work and reset. With the leadership change at work, I think I needed the break more than I realized.
    • I’m worried about the state of our nation, but I’m energized by the change in the presidential race. Biden stepping down, and Harris consolidating support has me encouraged.
    • Being open to changes. The camp our kids went to is also the camp that I attended and worked at. They changed pick up this year, ending on Friday instead of Saturday morning. I wasn’t sure about the change, but we attended a new final ceremony and it was great. I probably need to make this a full post, but we all need to accept that sometimes, change is needed.

    Projects

    • SbB Departure Mono is now live on MyFonts. I’ve got two other fonts that I will submit today or tomorrow.
    • I sketched out a couple of new font ideas while we were at the cabin in North Carolina. Was nice to have some time to sketch.

    Entertainment

    • We were in a cabin without our normal streaming setup. They had a Samsung TV service that had a bunch of ad-supported channels with random reality shows, so we watched some American Ninja Warrior and Ice Road Truckers.
    • I started reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Enjoying it, but having trouble remembering all the things that happened in the second book of the series.
    • F1 this weekend.
    • Will probably watch some of the Olympics.
    ∞

    Then: 7.20.24

    Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    Weird week. I got randomly sick for an evening. I woke up at 2 AM with a fever that only lasted a couple of hours and no other symptoms. So strange. Whenever I get sick now, I worry about COVID and getting others sick, but I’m pretty sure this was just a random virus.

    Feels

    • I’m excited about upcoming vacation. It’s been too long since I took a significant amount of time off.
    • I’m worried about the state of our nation.
    • Grateful for some rain. (We needed it.)

    Projects

    • I published two longer blog posts this week. One about the Star Trek episodes I tend to play in the background, and a second post about the whole Sticker Mule debacle.
    • More progress on fonts. I inched closer to releasing my new typefaces. Just some refinements to make sure everything passes the quality assurance checks.
    • Submitted an article to a journal to review. Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to be productive. Finished the query letter and hit the submit button. We’ll see what happens.

    Entertainment

    • Finished Star Wars: The Acolyte. I enjoyed the show and am interested to see if they give it a season two to finish the story.
    • I’ve been playing Pokemon Go with my son who just got a new phone.
    • F1 this weekend with the Hungarian Grand Prix.
    ∞

    Comfort Star Trek

    I’m home sick today and was thinking about shows I watch when I’m just killing time. Episodes I love to just put on in the background when I’m working (or sick). Most of the time, I open Paramount+ and play Star Trek. I figured I’d share my favorite “comfort” episodes. Warning: A couple of mild spoilers below for really old episodes.1

    Mariner and Boimler on the USS Enterprise.

    Star Trek: The Original Series

    • S1 E15 Balance of Terror. A “submarine” battle between Kirk and the Romulan commander.
    • S2 E6 The Doomsday Machine. The race to stop a machine before it destroys more planets.
    • S2 E15 The Trouble with Tribbles. My parents loved this episode when I was growing up and it’s one of my favorites. Sometimes, I pair it with DS9’s Trials and Tribble-Ations.

    Star Trek: The Next Generation

    • S2 E10 The Defector. More Romulan manipulation.
    • S4 E26 and E27 Redemption, Part 1 and 2. The Romulans try to destabilize the Klingon Empire.
    • S6 E4 Relics. A Dyson Sphere, and a somewhat believable way to resurrect an old character.

    Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

    • S5 E6 Trials and Tribble-Ations. The DS9 crew goes back in time to the middle of The Trouble with Tribbles.
    • S6 E6 Sacrifice of Angels. I love the action and pacing of this episode. The end of one of the arcs that dominate DS9.

    Star Trek: Voyager

    • S4 E14 Message in a Bottle. The Doctor is transmitted back into the Alpha Quadrant, and works with another Emergency Medical Hologram to liberate a Federation ship.
    • S7 E25 Endgame Parts 1 and 2. The series finale. The Voyager makes it home… twice.

    Star Trek: Discovery

    • S1 E7 Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad. A great time loop episode, with some great performances.
    • S2 E2 New Eden. Captain Pike. Mysterious Earth colony. Prime directive debates. Love it all.

    Star Trek: Lower Decks

    • S2 E7 Where Pleasant Fountains Lie. All about evil AI, but in the funniest possible way.
    • S3 E5 Reflections. Starfleet Recruiting Booth. Rutherford’s implant malfunctions.
    • S3 E6 Heal All, Trust Nothing. A visit to DS9, and Tendi goes full Orion to save the day.
    • S4 E4 Something Borrowed, Something Green. Tendi goes home for her sister’s wedding, and chaos ensues.

    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

    • S1 E2 Children of the Comet. A comet that’s worshipped as a live bringing god. Such an old school Star Trek story.
    • S2 E7 Those Old Scientists. A Lower Decks/Strange New World crossover that works far better than it should.
    • S2 E9 Subspace Rhapsody. The musical episode, that also works far better than it should.

    Star Trek: Picard

    • S3 E10 The Last Generation. A fan-service finale that’s full of fun.

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

    1. Or Star Wars: Rebels, but that’s a post for another day. ↩︎

    ∞

    Then: 7.13.24

    Posts titled “Then” were originally shared on my “Now” page.

    Good week, although still way too hot in Columbia, South Carolina. To be fair, it’s too hot pretty much everywhere, it seems. I’ve stolen a brilliant idea from Sven Dahlstrand (@sod on Micro.Blog) and I’m going to archive my previous “Now” pages on blog in a category called “Then.” I like to have an archive of everything and it always bothered me that my Now page implementation didn’t have a history.

    Feels

    • I’m tired. It’s been a long week for some reason.
    • Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
    • Sad that summer is coming to an end. Kids start school in less than a month. The excessive heat has been brutal this year. We are fortunate to have shelter and air conditioning so we can manage, but I haven’t felt like leaving the house. Ready for cooler weather.

    Projects

    • I’m getting closer to finishing a couple of new fonts to make available on MyFonts. Just need to put the finishing touches on the files and marketing images.
    • I spent time this week editing my paper on consumer attitudes toward logos. Happy with the edits. Time to submit it to a journal. We’ll see what happens.

    Entertainment

    • Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Finished watching the series this week. Liked where the story landed and was genuinely surprised by some of the callbacks and references to previous Trek franchises.
    • Star Wars: The Acolyte. Finale this week. I’ve enjoyed the show, and like the idea that they are telling the story in an earlier time period. I’ll probably post longer thoughts on the blog after the finale.
    • Looking for books for vacation and realized the last book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky series is out. I thought I’d preordered it, but apparently not. Need to go back and reread the last book to remember where they left things. Looking forward to reading the final book of the trilogy on vacation.
    • No F1 this week.
    ∞

    Then: 7.6.24

    I’m giving the “Now” page concept another go. I love the idea, but I just haven’t figured out how to make it work for me. For now, I’ve settled on an opening paragraph and three category prompts: feels, projects and entertainment. Should capture a nice snapshot of what I’m focused on and how I’m feeling. When I update these, I’m going to copy them over to Notion so I have a weekly journal.

    Feels

    • Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
    • Leadership changes at work are never easy to navigate.
    • Anxious about the state of our country.
    • My sore foot is feeling better, but that means I need to turn my focus back to getting healthy.

    Projects

    • I’ve decided to give this “Now” page a try again.
    • Finishing up a couple of fonts that I want to release soon. You can see previews at SbB Fonts.
    • I’ve got a paper that I need to update and submit to for publication. I’d really like to get it wrapped up this summer before the new semester starts.

    Entertainment

    • Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Working through the episodes slowly. I suck at binge watching.
    • F1, because my daugther got interested and now I’m hooked.

    Posts in the “Then” category are archives of my “Now” pages.

    ∞

    Dead Mall Memories

    I know that enclosed shopping malls have fallen out of fashion, but I’m of an age where malls played a major role in my childhood. An abandoned mall in Columbia is being torn down and I was thinking today about all the malls that have played a role in my life. I figured I’d share a couple of memories of malls that are no more…

    • Richland Fashion Mall. The mall that’s being torn down is in Forest Acres, South Carolina. I drove past it today so I’ll start with this one. Being close to the University of South Carolina campus and my first apartment, I took a bunch of trips to Richland Fashion Mall.1 We occasionally visited the movie theater on the rooftop before nicer theaters came to Columbia. Liz and I frequented the Barnes and Noble when we were dating and registered for our china at the Dillards when we got engaged. Liz even got her hair done at the Belk’s salon for a few years. Lots of good memories, but the mall had been pretty much abandoned for years and it’s good to see the redevelopment finally starting with the demolition of the old structure.

    • Dutch Square Mall. We lived in Illinois when I was in elementary school, but our family was still in South Carolina so we’d travel down twice a year to see everyone. One reliable stop was always Dutch Square Mall in Columbia, South Carolina near the intersection of I-26 and I-20. Back when Chick-fi-A was only in the South and only in mall food courts, this was an easy option for some delicious chicken sandwiches. Cromer’s Peanuts had a location in the mall where we could buy bags of boiled peanuts and see some monkeys.2 (I’m pretty sure my parents wanted to wear us out before we got to my grandparent’s house about an hour away.) Much later, the mall was renovated to have a 14-theater movie theater and the Dutch Square Theater became our go-to theater. I saw countless movies there including a midnight showing of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. With the opening of nearby Columbiana Mall, shoppers and retailers moved to the trendy new spot. Years later, I worked at an insurance company nearby and would occasionally run over to the Chick-fil-A, but it was clear by then that the mall was slowly dying and AMC closed the theater. The mall is actually still open and the movie theater is operated by a small chain now, but there’s not much out there any more. A nearby church is in the process of purchasing it and has plans to completely redevelop it.

    Shoppers at the Aiken Mall
    Shoppers at the Aiken Mall. Photo by Tim Dominick accessed via the Walker Local and Family History site at Richland Library.
    • Aiken Mall. This mall in Aiken, SC opened right as I started high school. For a small town, it was a big deal. It had a bunch of undersized anchor stores, but it also had everything a teenage me needed: an arcade, a Babbage’s video game store, a B. Dalton bookstore and a music store. My mom had us get family portraits taken at the Sears Portrait Studio many, many times. My car broke down in the parking lot at least once. As anchor stores JC Penny, Sears and Phar-Mor started to close, they tried to reconfigure it a couple of times, but the mall was already in a death spiral. At some point, they added a Books-a-Million and my in-laws would take our children there when they were babysitting. Redevelopment was promised for years, but they’ve finally torn most of it down and have started building a mixed-use development. Apparently, a Chicken Salad Chick will be opening soon in the new development.

    All three of these locations are finally being redeveloped and I’m really happy about that, but as a kid that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, these old hangouts will always hold a special place in my heart.

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

    1. Originally, there was an open air mall on this spot called Richland Mall. Then it was redeveloped and the name was changed to Richland Fashion Mall. Eventually its name was changed back to Richland Mall. ↩︎

    2. Seriously! The store had a display high in the back with several monkeys. ↩︎

    ∞

    Micro.Blog as my home base

    I was thinking this week about how Micro.Blog has become the home base for all of my online activity. I’ve had an account since I backed the Kickstarter in 2017, but recently, I’ve started slowly moving everything from my old Squarespace1 site:

    • Blog Hosting. This blog is hosted on Micro.Blog. I’m in the process of migrating my favorite old posts from Sketchbook B here so everything is in one place. At the $10/month premium subscription level, I can even add a few more blogs if I want to.

    • Site Hosting. SbBFonts.com is a static site hosted on Micro.Blog that features my typeface designs. I’ve got other ideas for simple sites I want to build. These “single page sites” are completely underrated feature of Micro.Blog and included with the premium plan. I love the flexibility of adding these kind of sites quickly and easily.

    • Social timeline. I use Micro.Blog’s timeline to interact with other Micro.Blog users and to follow Mastodon and other Fediverse accounts. It’s not the most active timeline because there is no algorithm pushing content at you. I consider that a feature, not a drawback. It’s not a replacement for other social sites like Mastodon, Threads or Bluesky, but it is a nice alternative.

    • Crossposting. Social media is fragmenting. When I post to Micro.Blog, I have it configured to automatically crosspost to Bluesky and Threads. I could also crosspost to LinkedIn, but I don’t want everything I post copied over there. People on Mastodon can follow my Micro.Blog posts at bobwertz@bobwertz.com. And the service keeps evolving. Micro.Blog founder Manton Reese is great about adding features as new APIs are released or updated.

    • My Tweet Archive. Just because I left Twitter didn’t mean I wanted to lose all my tweets. Manton built a way to import my tweets and I now have a searchable archive of 15 years of Twitter posts on my own site.

    • Third-party Tools. The web interface for Micro.Blog is fine, but I like using different apps, too. I can post directly to Micro.Blog from Ulysses and MarsEdit. Feedbin has a nice little integration, too, but I don’t use it much. It’s nice to have options, something that Squarespace doesn’t offer.2

    There are other features that I don’t take advantage of yet like email newsletters, podcasts and narrated posts. All of these are included with my plan, I just haven’t gotten around to using them yet.

    I know that Micro.Blog isn’t for everyone. It’s easy to get started, but to get maximum customization, you need to be comfortable with tinkering. The text editor uses Markdown, which I like, but many people have never heard of. It’s worth noting that Micro.Blog has no built in metrics. This is by design and I think it’s a good thing, but if you are the type of person who wants to dig into the metrics of every post, this probably isn’t the service for you.3

    Micro.Blog is exactly what I want in a service. A home for all of my random thoughts, projects and experiments. The service provides an incredible amount of value for $5 or $10 a month and it feels like the web I fell in love with. If it aligns with your needs, there really isn’t a better service.

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

    1. Squarespace seems to be trying to serve a business audience with a ton of features that I really don’t need. Plus, they recently announced they are going private again with the help of private equity. This makes me nervous. ↩︎

    2. When I first started using Squarespace, there was an API, but they phased out support for that a long time ago. ↩︎

    3. You can add metrics through some other third party services, but I personally want to remain blissfully ignorant. Maybe I’ll write a post about that some day. ↩︎

    ∞

    SbB Fonts: My new two-color type design site hosted on Micro.Blog

    I decided a while back that I wanted to separate my typeface designs onto their own site. They’ve always lived alongside my blog and other creative projects, but they needed a home of their own, especially since I plan to expand the offerings in the near future. I’ve been noodling around with options, but today, I’m finally ready to release SbBFonts.com out into the world with a design inspired by two-color printing.

    screenshot of sbbfonts.com

    The Inspiration

    When I became a designer in the mid-1990s, the web was just becoming a thing, and printed documents were the primary job of a designer. Two-color projects used only two spot ink colors — say green and black — for the entire job. (You also had a “third” color with the paper, which was usually just white.) Four-color printing or full-color printing was reserved for only the most important pieces with the largest budgets. For young designers in a pre-web world, two-color work paid the bills. Two-color printing presented challenges, but the process had a particular look. Designers who knew what they were doing could use duotones for images or print on colored paper to get a different look.

    Two-color printing isn’t dead. Screen printing and letterpress still use spot colors, but full color printing has gotten cheaper and as a society, we don’t print nearly as many marketing materials as we used to. The craft of designing has moved past the lowly two-color press run.

    I guess that’s why when I started to design a home for my typeface designs, I knew I wanted the site to resemble a two-color print job. Much of the inspiration for my type designs comes from my nostalgia for old tech. Two-color printing seemed like the perfect inspiration.

    The Execution

    The first question was what two “ink” colors to use? Since I wanted to use a dark background, I chose white and the bright green since I use that color for all of my Sketchbook B projects. I picked two dark greens to be backgrounds — essentially a dark mode and a darker mode.1 Accommodating the two background colors meant that I also needed to use transparency on all of my example graphics, including my fake “duotones” and my animated GIFs. You can see the example below of one of the images I used placed over white, dark green and darker green backgrounds. I’m happy with the result, even if there are far easier ways to accomplish this look.2

    three examples of the duotone approach using an image with shipping containers and a crane

    This site is hosted as a “single page” on Micro.Blog. This might be the worst named feature on Micro.Blog since you can absolutely have more than one page. It’s simply a static Hugo site that doesn’t include a blog. I built everything on the Tiny theme by Matt Langford — the same version that I use for bobwertz.com. This feature is included in my Micro.Blog subscription, so my additional cost is essentially nothing.3

    To get the look I wanted, I had to write a bunch of HTML and CSS. My old site was on Squarespace, so it has been a while since I worked so closely with markup. I spent a good bit of time digging through reference guides to make sure I was doing everything correctly. But honestly, if you look under the hood, it’s probably a mess. Just a warning.4

    I still have a little refinement left, but I’m happy with where the site is. I need to finish proofreading and rework some of the copy. I’m thinking about future development… I’ve got a plan on how to change the home page when I add a few more typefaces. Right now, I think the five fonts currently presented in this way is about the maximum.

    Head over to SbB Fonts and let me know what you think.

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

    1. The print designer in me would like to acknowledge that I’d likely need to use two hits of white on dark paper to get this effect. Meaning that it would likely need to be a three-color job. I’m ignoring that inconvenient truth. ↩︎

    2. Or, you know, not having a “light mode” version… ↩︎

    3. I did choose to buy a domain name. ↩︎

    4. The last time I built a site by hand, tables were an acceptable construction method. ↩︎

    ∞

    15 years of Fontstruct

    I realized this morning that I’ve been using Fontstruct for 15 years. Fontstruct is an online tool for building modular typefaces. My first typeface design — Big Thursday — debuted on May 26, 2009. Since then, I’ve publicly released 49 fonts on Fontstruct and 19 have been selected as “Staff Picks.”

    The original version didn’t have a lot of flexibility,1 but over time developer Rob Meek has added new brick types, construction methods, kerning, support for color fonts and other features to Fontstruct to make it more powerful. My work tends to be a little brutalist, but if you want to understand the flexibility of the tool, check out the gallery to see what amazing creations people can craft with this online tool.

    I don’t use the most complicated features, but I sometimes use Fontstruct to prototype an idea for a new typeface. One of Fontstruct’s best integrations is that I can download a file that I can open and refine in Glyphs.2 I recently created a design, moved it to Glyphs and built a variable font out of it.

    Balancing work, family, grad school and other obligations, I don’t have a ton of time to spend in Fontstruct. But when they rolled out the Patron level of support for 5 euro a month, I subscribed immediately. I’m happy to support independent tools that are constantly improving.

    I pulled together a sample of some of the designs I’ve created over the years on Fontstruct. Feel free to head over to my page and download anything you like. Or better yet, sign up for an account and start experimenting.

    Examples of typefaces designed with Fontstruct

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

    1. And was built in Flash! ↩︎

    2. Glyphs is my type design software of choice. I love it. ↩︎

    ∞

    Project Repost: Moving select posts from Squarespace to Micro.Blog

    I started a blog in early 2008. Over the years, I wrote hundreds of posts and articles. Some of it good. Much of it forgettable. I authored a bunch of InDesign tips that generated search traffic, but over time, I became less interested in writing about Adobe Creative Cloud and design issues. A few years ago, I moved all my writing over to this site. As part of some work I’m doing this summer to clean up my various sites, I wanted to figure out how to save the posts from this old Squarespace site.

    I tried to export the entire archive, but had limited success. The Squarespace export uses the Wordpress export format. And the export kinda works, but Squarespace’s software has inserted random code blocks throughout that would have to be removed manually. I thought about just shutting down the whole blog, but changed my mind. As I scanned over the list of articles, there were too many posts that I didn’t want to lose.

    As I mentioned in the earlier post, a friend of mine (who also happened to have an old Squarespace site) mentioned that he moved selected posts manually to a new site, and let go of the stuff he no longer focused on. The more I looked at my old writing, the more this seemed like the logical path forward.

    I’ve decided that I’m going to slowly move selected posts to bobwertz.com. Several of them were written at a particular time, about specific events so I’ve decided to post them on the new site with the original date. I’ve added a sentence at the top, to explain that the post has been moved. I’ll make minor grammar or spelling corrections, but otherwise I plan to leave the posts as they are now.

    As a test, I’ve moved two posts already: B.A.R.E. (Bad Acronyms aRe Everywhere) from 2015 and I made a red velvet cake from 2018. I’ve got about 70 posts that I want to move, and I plan to move a couple of posts each week.

    I think it’s worth noting that one of the reasons I feel comfortable moving everything to Micro.Blog is Manton’s commitment to ensuring the content you create can easily be moved, archived or backed up. I’ve turned on Micro.Blog’s Github backup feature, and I know I can export my content in a number of formats if I need to, including the blog archive format that Manton proposed. I wish more services realized the value of allowing easy export of content, and I’m appreciative of Micro.Blog’s commitment to portability and interoperability.

    I’m happy with this solution and even though it will take time to move the posts manually, I truly believe it’s the best option for this situation.

    Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

    ∞

    Reading back over 14 years of blog posts... and deciding what to do with them.

    Several years ago, I moved all of my blog posting from my Squarespace-hosted sketchbookb.com to my Micro.Blog-hosted bobwertz.com. I’ve been happy with the move. My plan was to switch my Squarespace blog over to more professional posts, but that never really happened — and I don’t really feel like posting more InDesign and Creative Cloud tips. Last week, I decided that I need to do something with the old site and I’m working through my options.

    One of the options was just to bring the site down and redirect sketchbookb.com to a new site. I’ve got over 600 posts, though, and while most of them don’t see any traffic, I’d hate to see them all disappear. I started to go back through the site to see what I’d lose.

    My first post is in 2008 and my last post was at the end of 2021. There are many tips and tricks for InDesign that generate significant traffic even though they are very old. I also have a large number of reviews for iPhone apps that no longer exist. I wouldn’t miss those posts, but reading back through my writing, there is much that I do not want to part with. A reflection about being on a beach on a moonless night. My series of Twitterless posts and a handful of somewhat prescient rants about social media. My 52 Shirts project. New typeface introductions. Writing about our COVID reality. My original attempt at hosting my microblogging on Sketchbook B. My successful attempt to bake my mom’s red velvet cake recipe.1

    So what should I do? I’m not going to delete Sketchbook B without saving the posts somehow. I have first drafts of most of the writing in Ulysses, the app where I’ve done most of my writing for almost a decade.2 But the final posts often have custom illustrations or additional copy edits, so the Ulysses version is somewhat incomplete. I’ve experimented with trying to export and move the posts from Squarespace, but that hasn’t gone well. One of my friends recommended saving the posts that matter to me and moving them manually to bobwertz.com. That would work for some of the posts, but it would be a tedious process. A couple of them — like my examination on viewscreens and interfaces in Star Trek — really could be updated. I may start updating and reposting select articles to bobwertz.com and just add a note to the beginning about when and where they were originally posted. We’ll see how that goes.

    I will still try to move them to another site. I have a full backup of my tweets, and I’d love to have Sketchbook B as well. The problem is that Squarespace exports using the Wordpress format, but they have some extra code in the export that causes problems.

    Finally, the print designer part of me wants to pull together all the posts that matter and make a physical book. Place a copy on my bookshelf. It seems appropriate as a way to close an old chapter and start a new one.

    Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

    1. I’d link to them, but I may be moving them somewhere else. ↩︎

    2. I know because there’s a post on Sketchbook B from 2015 about starting to use Ulysses. ↩︎

    ∞

    What value does a national organization offer?

    I’m noticing a tension growing between national organizations and their local affiliates. Just three recent examples that have crossed my path:

    • I was once an AIGA1 chapter president and stepped down to go back to graduate school, but I was also disillusioned with the mission and how the national organization treated its chapters. Now AIGA National is struggling with finances and relevance, while member’s loyalty (and all the value of the membership) is tied up at the local level.

    • Churches are going through the same thing. When the massive Methodist church near us left the denomination, they didn’t join one of the new organizations. They essentially became a non-denominational church. And pointed out in the news article that they get to keep all of the money they used to send to the churchwide organization.

    • The organizers of the local NaNoWriMo2 group in our area became frustrated with the national organization, and essentially became an independent writing support group. They were running a year-round organization anyway, and didn’t see the need for the national organization. Their Facebook group wiped all mention of NaNoWriMo

    National organizations were once necessary to provide credibility, structure and support. Local organizations could provide local services and the relationship was mutually beneficial. Over time, that equation has shifted. Less value is provided by the national organization. Loyalties are with the local clubs, churches or groups. If the local leadership and the national leadership disagree, the local leadership has the leverage to take their organization independent. And in many cases, that seems like it’s happening.

    I do think there is value in national organizations, but organizations like AIGA need to better understand what value they bring to the table and strike a new balance with their local partners. Or risk becoming irrelevant.

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

    1. Formerly the American Institute for Graphic Arts, but now just “The Organization for Design.” ↩︎

    2. National Novel Writing Month ↩︎

    ∞

    Why didn’t the airbags deploy?

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

    SUV in a car accident surrounded by emergency vehicles.

    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.

    SUV in junkyard impaled by a tree. Tree embedded in SUV with the hood up. Interior of an SUV with a tree going through the dashboad and between the 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.

    1. That’s not at all how this works. ↩︎

    ∞

    Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast, and Gill Sans: Separating work from their creator?

    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.

    1. I almost didn’t post the article referencing Gill’s quote, but his writings on the craftsmanship during the Industrial Revolution are incredibly relevant in today’s generative AI world. ↩︎

    ∞

    Inherent. Indestructible. Permanent.

    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.

    1. Eric Gill was insightful about human nature, but was, himself, an awful human. ↩︎

    ∞

    The Jobification of Volunteer Work

    Almost 20 years ago, I was in San Francisco for my first AIGA Leadership Retreat. AIGA is a national organization for design1 and I was a first-time president for the South Carolina chapter. I’d just finished attending a session on leadership and one of my new friends who’d been a president before pulled me aside and gave me some advice: “This is supposed to be fun. If it stops being fun, ask for help. You are giving up a bunch of your free time and if you aren’t having fun, it’s not worth it.”

    I’ve been thinking about that advice a lot lately and I’ve come to a realization. Our volunteer “opportunities” have become unpaid part-time jobs. (Maybe they always were…) We are saddled with job descriptions and expectations. We dedicate our time and energy to a cause because we believe in it, but we manage volunteer organizations following the only model we have: business.

    I see it in churches, who are looking for people to fill roles and run programs to keep the organization functioning.

    I see it in our professional organizations, like AIGA, where we expect a level of excellence and professionalism on par with what we would expect from our corporate colleagues.

    I see it in academia, where professors do a massive amount of additional service work in reviewing journal submissions and organizing conferences.

    I see it in recreational youth sports, where people dedicate nights and weekends to coaching kids year-after-year.

    I see it in our organizational boards that are increasingly trying to recruit people with particular backgrounds and skill sets to provide professional guidance.

    This problem is compounded by how we talk about these volunteer positions:

    • You are giving back, not using your free time.

    • You are offering your skills and abilities, not providing free labor that other people would pay you for.

    • You are providing service to the community, not working for free.

    We talk about this volunteer jobs more like a calling, not a job. And that makes it so much harder to separate from a position that is overwhelming.

    The result of this structure is almost always burnout. Frustration. We often become stuck in our volunteer positions, unable to find someone to take over the incredibly complex structure or programming we have built or maintained. Unsurprisingly, most people — even if they care about deeply about an organization or cause — are unwilling to step up and commit massive time and energy to a cause when they are already juggling their own jobs and family commitments. The volunteer opportunity that you were excited about is now weighing you down and causing stress and anxiety. It’s no longer fun.

    This situation isn’t good for the organizations either. After someone manages to escape from a volunteer position, how often does that person significantly decrease their involvement? I can’t tell you how many people I know who disappear after a long stint on a church council. Or how many former AIGA presidents I know who now have nothing to do with AIGA only a couple of years after their term is over. How many board members step away completely after their service is complete?

    The mission of the organization then shifts from serving the community to finding the volunteers to sustain the organization.

    We need to rethink volunteer leadership.

    The realignment starts at the top. If the leadership of an organization is overworked and burned out, the other volunteers will assume that’s normal. Some will try to emulate the behavior. Others will leave knowing they can’t commit that much. Our presidents, executive directors and other leadership need to model an appropriate work/life/volunteer balance. Working around the clock isn’t always the long-term, sustainable answer.

    We need to spend less time crafting our job descriptions and more time building relationships. We’re following the model we know, based on how our business organizations are structured, but I’m not sure that model works in today’s volunteer organization. While we need to make sure expectations are clear, we also need to worry less about the business-like hierarchy and spend more energy on engaging our community. Focus on doing good work, aligned with the mission of the organization.

    We need to be realistic about what we are asking people to do. Recruit more people to do smaller jobs instead of asking one person to commit a massive amount of time. Maybe in the past, you recruited one or two people to run an event. Maybe you should instead recruit 5-10 to cover the same amount of work. And if we can’t find the needed volunteers, it is time to scale back the project or event to be more reasonable.

    We need to be thankful for the contributions of others, no matter how small. Too often, we thank volunteers by presenting them with opportunities to embrace an ever-increasing volunteer workload. We need to actively discourage overcommitment… and never ask for more than anyone should rationally be able to give.

    We need to be thoughtful to fellow volunteers. It’s easy to get frustrated when people drop the ball. We need to check in on each other, be supportive and remember that we are all doing this for free, in our spare time, because we support the same cause and the same mission. We need to be understanding, not judgmental. We need to offer support, not criticism.

    Understand the difference between governance and micromanagement. Yes, we need boards to make sure that the money is being handled properly and the mission is well-defined. But the board shouldn’t micromanage everything. We need to let people do the tasks we ask them to do.

    Be flexible. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Be flexible with expectations. Be understanding when things don’t turn out the way you wanted. And realize that every volunteer is balancing life and work and family.

    And finally, we need to remember to have fun. These organizations and boards that we support, love and commit our time to… they should be enjoyable. And if they aren’t, it’s time to fix them.

    Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. Bob is currently taking a break from board service and volunteer opportunities, after getting burned out.

    1. AIGA used to stand for American Institute for Graphic Arts. Now, it’s just the organization for design. ↩︎

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