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...

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.

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...

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...

Every so often, Fontstruct has a themed competition and the current competition focuses on the new color features. I’ve pulled together three color designs that try to use color in different ways — a pattern, a bright multicolor whimsical design and a 3D effect.

One of the fun things about the competitions is the amazing creativity that comes out of the community. Fonstructors can interpret the theme is very different ways and it’s always amazing to see the varied approaches driven by a simple prompt. I’ve entered a few times and even got an honorable mention once in the “Reverse” Competition for SbB Codebreaker. I will also note that I’ve been impressed with how Affinity Designer has handled the color fonts. Seems to work flawlessly.

SbB Lumberjack

My first idea for a colored font was to make a pattern. I played with a couple of different patterns, but settled...

A number of years ago, Liz and I celebrated our anniversary in Charleston and stayed at an up and coming hotel — The French Quarter Inn. We loved our stay, the location is perfect, right in the middle of the downtown area. At the time, it was a little expensive, but reasonable for a luxury experience. Liz and I stayed there a few more times for anniversaries and birthdays and each time, we loved our experience. I found a shot I took from our balcony in 2013 with a iPhone:¹

We weren’t the only one who loved the hotel. The French Quarter Inn was honored as one of the best in America by Travel and Leisure. After they were honored, it was tough to get a reservation and the...

I’ve been thinking about color fonts lately. Experimenting with the color fonts features in Fontstruct and Glyphs. Trying to better understand how to create color fonts. And while I’m starting to understand how they are made, I’m left with one major question… why?

Why do we need color fonts?

If you don’t know, fonts are typically monochromatic. Black and white only. Color is applied in software like Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Office. The ability to customize is limitless.

Often, the case for color fonts is made for the web. A complex typeface design with color features that can be encapsulated as a vector font and customized via CSS would be appealing. But color web fonts support is inconsistent across browsers. I also think web-based design apps like Canva and Adobe Express that cater to more novice designers might have a use for some pre-colored fonts.

I did think of one application — nautical flags....

I’m tired. It was a long semester — working full time and taking two classes is always challenging. But one of my classes was much more work than I expected. My son’s lacrosse experience was chaotic, poorly scheduled and quite frankly, not fun at all. I’ve failed at my goal to get healthy by my 50th birthday. Things haven’t gone great professionally. The world seems to be burning down around us. I’m tired. Exhausted. I feel it in every bone of my body.

I’ve always thought that the cure for tiredness was rest — and I will get some vacation time in this summer — but I think it’s more than just taking days off and ignoring work emails. I think the “cure” for this type of tiredness is hope. Hope that things will improve. Believing that I’m headed in the right direction. When things seem bleak, it’s easy to feel...

Slate Auto announced their new electric pickup truck this week, and I’m intrigued. If you haven’t heard about it, the Slate is a barebones electric truck — intended to be customized — all for under $20,000 with current Federal EV incentives.¹

Some of these ideas have been tried before. Jeeps have always promoted modularity and customization. The Slate uses plastic body panels like Saturn did. Toyota tried to target youth with Scion, which was intended to be heavily customizable. But Slate takes these concepts further. Much further:

1. The Slate comes in one color – gray – because they intend for you to customize it with a vinyl wrap. Wraps are apparently cheaper than paint and with a wrap, you can get any design or color you can imagine. (I built the...
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About 16 years ago, I started playing around with Fontstruct, an online tool for crafting modular typefaces. I’ve released 48 designs on Fontstruct and some of those have served as prototypes for designs that I finish in Glyphs, my favorite type design app. I tend to work in Fontstruct intensively for a while, and then disappear for a year or more. But I love the tool and contribute as a “Patron.”

Lately, I’ve been on quite the streak.

SbB Papaya. I was watching F1 and McLaren uses some modular numerals on their cars. Based on those numbers, I built an entire design. I wasn’t sure if the look was going to extend through the whole character set, but the design actually works pretty well. And as a bonus, the Fontstruct team selected it as a top pick.

SbB Powercore. I’ve had...

Dave Winer writing about the “the Writer’s Web”:

The web was initially designed for writers. Styling, links, paragraphs, titles (at all levels). The ability to edit. No character limits. That’s what we had to work with when we started blogging in the mid-late 90s.

What happened to the writer-centric web I loved in the late 1990s? Building a regular readership is challenging. In the earliest days, sites linked to other sites. Bloggers shared work from other bloggers. RSS provided the ability to subscribe to sites, but after Google killed Reader, the focus turned exclusively to search engines and social media. The competition to be at the top of the search results reshaped writing on the web. The ever-changing social media algorithm provided an audience for writers, but maintaining that audience changed the nature of writing on the web.

Blogs became about ad revenue. Search engine traffic and optimization. Building a “side gig.”...