I get Apple News+ with my Apple One bundle and I actually use it frequently on my Mac. My local newspaper, The State, in included in News+ and I can read articles that are normally behind a paywall. Once I’m there, I tend to find other things to read and share. But sharing Apple News story links on social media isn’t always helpful since it obscures the real URL behind a redirect.
On a Mac, it’s easy to share the original URL. Click the share button in the upper right hand corner of the interface, and choose Safari. It opens the original article on the web and you can then share that URL instead of a link to Apple News.
On the iPhone, it’s not as simple. Click the ellipses in the upper right and select Share Story. Then from the list of apps that appears, select Safari. (You may need to click More and scroll down to find it.) The result is the same as the Mac, a new Safari window with the original URL.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
Yesterday, I mentioned I was interested in the media narrative surrounding the introduction of Instagram Threads. I wanted to expand on what I’m looking for, and to do that, I need to start with some mass communications theory.
I’m a Ph.D. student that mostly researches visual effects, but I’ve taken a few classes that look at how media effects work. There are levels to media effects, but essentially, you can break it into three types of effects.1
Agenda Setting tells you what to think about.
Framing tells you how to think about it.
Priming prompts you to take an action.
Everyone teaches this a little differently, but this is how I like to think about it. As I look at how the media covers Instagram’s Thread, I think it’s worth thinking about the coverage in these terms.
Agenda Setting
The media is very good and setting the “agenda” for what people are thinking about. If the media you watch or read is covering a topic, you are more likely to care about the topic.
We know that the tech media like The Verge have picked up the thread and predictably, tech circles online are discussing what Instagram Threads will mean for social media and the Fediverse. This is agenda setting in action.
But will the mass media cover it? Will the CNN website run a story about Instagram Threads? Will The NY Times run an explainer about how to use Threads? Will South-Carolina-native and all-around good guy Craig Melvin talk about Threads on the Today Show? I don’t know.
While “agenda setting” sounds a little nefarious, it isn’t always. There are many factors that go into story selection. One major challenge right now is the crowded media environment. Take a look at the front pages of major news websites and what do you see? Supreme Court rulings. Mass shootings. Russia’s mutiny. Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Trump’s indictments. Protests in France. The U.S. relationship with China. Interest rates. Inflation. These topics all compete for space and time in a news organization. Does the introduction of a new service from Meta really rank up there in importance with these other topics?
News media also pay attention to metrics about their readership. If viewers are reading stories about Threads, editors will assign more stories. If people aren’t interested in the topic, it will fade. There seems to be general interest in the Elon Musk’s mismanagement of Twitter and his rivalry with Mark Zuckerberg. If people are reading the stories about Threads, maybe Meta does get a little more coverage than something like this would normally merit.2
Honestly, I’ll know if there is mass media coverage when my wife asks me what I think about it.
Framing
The next level relates to how the stories are positioned. We know that tech media is framing the release of Instagram Threads as the latest change in a rapidly changing social media world. The stories right now seem to be largely framed as a contrast with existing Twitter alternatives, especially given the conversations within Mastodon admins about whether to preemptively block access to a service that may support ActivityPub.
But for a mass media audience, that’s all too nuanced. Given the high profile implosion of Twitter, and the bravado between Musk and Zuckerberg, I think pretty much every story is going to frame Instagram Threads as a Twitter-killer.
I do imagine that they’ll at least mention Mastodon and Bluesky. Beyond that, who knows.
Priming
If the mass media covers the introduction of Threads – and the framing is positive – the coverage may be enough to prompt people to sign up for accounts. This priming effect is typically short-lived, but if Meta is able to get a lot of news coverage, there may be a surge in sign ups not too dissimilar to the surge in interest surrounding Mastodon and Bluesky. This won’t necessarily translate into engaged customers, but getting people to download the app and try the service is the first hurdle for Meta.
So as you look at the media coverage surrounding the launch of Instagram Threads, think about it in terms of agenda setting, framing and priming. (And actually, as you look at media bias in general, these three concepts are helpful in understanding how it works and why it happens.)
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I’ve massively simplified things, so if one of my professors sees this… I’m sorry. ↩︎
Unlike Twitter, Facebook actually has a public relations team. They should be able to round up some significant coverage. ↩︎
I looks like Meta will release their text-based, Instagram-branded Twitter competitor this week. Am I excited about Instagram Threads? Not really. I’m happy with the current state of my social media usage.
Am I curious about it? Absolutely. We are in a fascinating period of change in the services we use online and the ways we share information. Specifically, I’m interested in three questions:
Will Instagram users actually adopt it? This is the big question. Will the people I follow on Instagram start accounts? And will they post content that I’m interested in? What will the demographics of the user base be? So many question about what this audience might look like.
How will the ActivityPub implementation work? As a devoted Micro.Blog user, I’m interested in the rumored ActivityPub integration. Will I be able to follow Threads users on Micro.Blog? Can I cross post from Micro.Blog? As the first mainstream ActivityPub implementation, it will be interesting to see how they connect with the larger Fediverse.
What’s the media narrative? It’s guaranteed that there will be a direct contrast with the dumpster fire that Twitter has become, but what other media narratives will take shape. How will it be compared to Mastodon and Bluesky? Will media coverage increase consumer knowledge about the ActivityPub? Sounds like a research paper for grad school.
I’ll probably sign up for an account, since Instagram is pretty much the only social media I use other than Micro.Blog. And we’ll see what happens.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
Our neighbors installed a new security system a couple of weeks ago. When you walk anywhere near it – and that radius includes our driveway – a recording plays: “You are currently being recorded.”
We have great neighbors, but when I first heard it, I was a little annoyed. My wife was irritated, too. Every time we walked to our cars… “You are currently being recorded.”
A few days after this started, I was walking out to the car with my kids and the alarm system informed us that we were being recorded… and my 15-year-old daughter waived in the general direction of the camera, yelled “Hello camera” and got in the car. She repeats this greeting every day when she leaves for school, choosing to be amused instead of irritated.1
There are two lessons in this story:
Don’t install a talking alarm system. It’s annoying. (My neighbor isn’t happy either. He says it is way too sensitive and goes off at the slightest movement.)
We can choose to be amused instead of irritated. Sometimes, it’s best to greet the metaphorical camera and go on with your day.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
We asked our neighbor if the camera records audio. It doesn’t. Jill knows this. She says hello anyway. ↩︎
Not everything is going to change the world tomorrow
I’m not sure when the “hot take” era started. It predates the internet1, but social media really seems to have kicked it into the stratosphere. There’s a rush to hype everything as the next disruptive invention. Wearable devices. Foldable displays. Ride sharing and self-driving cars. Blockchain and cryptocurrency. Artificial intelligence and machine learning. AR and VR. Federated social media.
While social media drives the hype train, it’s powered by money. Major companies are afraid of missing a big trend and becoming irrelevant. Small companies see an opportunity to move fast and take advantage of the new tech. VC firms are willing to gamble on the technology in hopes of a big pay day. Entrepreneurs sell grand visions with hopes of making it big. All of these entities benefit from building the hype around every new technology.
What technology really needs is time to mature. Time to work the bugs out. To discover the downsides and figure out how to address them. To build a sustainable business model. Instead, too often, the money-powered hype train moves too fast and the whole thing just derails.
I love reading about technology and learning about all the latest advancements, but I’ve been following technology long enough to know that slow and steady usually wins the race.2
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I’ve done some research on printing technology and let me tell you, the newspaper reports from the late 1800s about the Linotype are the definition of “hot take.” ↩︎
Do you remember the TV show Beyond 2000? How many of those featured technologies actually became successful products? Not many. ↩︎
WARNING: Spoilers and speculation about Star Trek: Picard.
In Star Trek Picard season 3, episode 6, The Bounty, the USS Titan jumps to the Starfleet Ship Museum to get help from Commodore Geordi La Forge. The first exterior shot of the museum includes a selection of familiar ships (like the Enterprise A, Voyager and the Defiant) positioned in rings around the exterior of the space dock. There was one empty ring, and so the Titan “hides” in plain sight among the museum ships.
When Geordi and his daughter Alandra beam aboard the Titan, they reveal that the Titan and all modern Federation ships are networked with each other. Starfleet will find them. Picard is pleading with Geordi to help when his daughter interrupts.
Alandra (quietly): “Dad. What about Hanger Bay 12?”
Geordi (exasperated): “Alandra. Please.”
And the dialog continues. I assumed that what was in Hanger Bay 12 would be the key to the episode, but it’s not. Jack Crusher steals the cloaking device from Star Trek IV’s Klingon Bird of Prey and the Titan rushes off to rescue Raffi, Riker and Worf on Daystrom Station. Hanger Bay 12 is never mentioned again.
So, what’s in Hanger Bay 12? Likely a new ship for the museum that was intended for that empty circle that the Titan parked in. Alandra clearly thinks the ship would be helpful — maybe because it’s not networked. I assume that the ship in Hanger Bay 12 was likely intended to be unveiled as part of the Frontier Day ceremony and then intended to fill the empty ring at the Fleet Museum. Instead, I imagine that Picard and crew are going to come riding to the rescue in that ship…
My guess: The Enterprise 1701-D.
I can’t think of any other ships that are significant enough and aren’t already represented in fleet museum. The 1701-D was destroyed in Star Trek: Generations, though. How could it reappear? Well, at least one of the ships they show in the museum, The Enterprise 1801-A, is a replica since the original was destroyed in Star Trek III. The new Enterprise-D could simply be a retrofitted Galaxy-class starship. Or the original 1701-D saucer section paired with a different Galaxy-class body.
It might seem like excessive fan-service, but if done well, I think it would be incredible to see the crew save the day in the ship from the TV show. Picard, Riker and Troi in the three command seats. Worf at tactical. Data at helm. Geordi in engineering. It would be a fun conclusion to this final season of Star Trek Picard.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student, researcher and Star Trek fan living in Columbia, South Carolina.
The beta service gives some insight into how Adobe views AI’s role in the creative process.
I recently got access to Adobe Firefly, a beta generative AI system. It’s not a surprise at all that Adobe is experimenting with generative creative tools. Adobe is clearly looking at ways AI can integrate with the tools that they already offer. Thankfully, unlike an earlier wave of visual AI tools, Adobe has trained their AI model on properly-licensed images. Generated images are restricted to non-commercial use and a label is added to exported images, but you shouldn’t see a Getty Images watermark anywhere.
I’ve been following news about generative AI, but I haven’t really experimented with any of the other tools. It’s been more of an abstract curiosity. Now after playing with Adobe Firefly, I can see some of the practical implications of generative AI tools and started to think about how those features could fit into a design workflow. Also, as a Ph.D. student trying to settle on a dissertation topic, I see lots of research questions when I look at generative AI and Adobe Firefly.
Right now, the service has two features: Text to Image and Text Effects. I’ve spent a little bit of time experimenting with Adobe Firefly and wanted to share some initial impressions.
Text to image
The text to image feature is straightforward. Type in a prompt and Firefly generates four images. On the right, there is a palette with options that lets you refine your request. You can choose the aspect ratio, content type, style, lighting and composition. Below is a screenshot of the interface and a few examples of what it can do:
Prompt: green metal fish-shaped spaceship on an alien planet Styles: art, concept art, dramatic light, flat colors
Prompt: green hot rod racing through the desert Styles: photo, muted, blurry background, backlighting, science fiction
Prompt: loose sketch of a white male with a green sweater and a stubble beard typing on a laptop in a coffee shop Styles: art
A couple of quick reflections on using Firefly’s Text to Image feature:
For the content type, I feel art worked best for the creations I generated.
The select similar button lets you refine easily
Realistic people and animals are a struggle. I accidentally generated a person with two noses. And sometimes, an arm connects in the wrong spot.
If you include too many prompts, Firefly often doesn’t know how to resolve them all and you get strange results.
Text Effects
Text Effects lets you specify and apply an AI-generated effect to some text. Firefly has a few sample effects that give you a good idea of what the feature can do. You can choose from 12 different fonts.
Prompt: Green fluffy clouds, tight fit, transparent background
Prompt: Flowers and Rocks, loose fit, white background
A couple of notes:
If you have two of the same letter, they are identical. And while I understand that, it ruins the hand-created art look. Hopefully they’ll change this in future versions.
The transparent background works well when you use the loose fit because elements overflow the shape of the letters.
I could see this feature being built into Adobe apps eventually.
What’s next?
Adobe Firefly is definitely a work in progress – it is a beta – but there are more features in development. The Adobe Firefly site lists one feature as coming soon, Recolor Vectors. I’m not sure how that will differ from the Recolor Artwork feature in Adobe Illustrator, but I’m looking forward to trying it out. Several other features are teased as “In exploration” and some of them look interesting. No idea how close to release these are — for all I know, they are ideas on a white board — but “text to vector” and “extend background” could be fun to play with. I’ll likely write additional posts as new features are introduced.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
Customize your navigation with filtered categories
When I first moved my blogging over to Micro.Blog, I struggled with the perceived rigidity of the navigation. It took me a little time to refine it, but I eventually figured it out. I’ve had a couple of people ask about my solution, so I figured I’d share a quick summary of how I set it up my navigation.
It shouldn’t matter what theme you are using, but for my site, I use the Pure plug in, which is a good foundation to build from. By default, the template presents a home page that includes all of your posts. Instead, I wanted to have different links in my navigation for my longer “blog” posts and my shorter “tweet-like” status posts.
It’s actually pretty easy to do, but it takes a few steps.
Create the categories you want. I created two categories: Quick Updates and Long Posts. You can create as many categories or group them differently, but this worked for me.
Set up filters. Filters will automatically apply categories based on different parameters. Click the “Edit Filters” button beneath the list of categories. I set up two filters. One that sorted untitled posts into my “Quick Thoughts” category and a second that grouped together all of my long posts with titles. This way, my posts are automatically grouped into one of the two categories. In the screenshot below, I used the “Post Length” setting.
Determine the URL for each category. Each category in Micro.Blog has a URL, typically formatted as http://DOMAIN-NAME/categories/CATEGORY-NAME. Find the URLs for each of the categories you want in the navigation.
Create a new page. Name the page and then paste the category URL into the content box. Make sure “Include this page in your blog navigation” is checked. Repeat for all of your categories. You’ll then have a navigation item for each of your categories.
This technique works really well when paired with the Custom Home Page plug in. You can see the result in the navigation on my site. I know that I could do this by building a custom template. At some point, maybe I will. But right now, I’d like to keep it as simple as I can, and this works really well for me.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
One of my goals for this year is being healthier. Eating better. Moving more. The hope was that by breaking some bad habits I developed during COVID, I could lose some weight and feel better. I wanted to post occasional updates to keep myself accountable.
Two months in, things are going great. I feel significantly better — that’s the “metric” I care about most — and I’ve dropped a significant amount of weight. I’m not doing any trendy diet or counting calories. I’ve adapted some principles from intuitive eating.1 I’m making smarter decisions about food and listening to my body. One example, I’ve pretty much stopped drinking beverages with calories. At Starbucks, I get a black coffee or hot tea. Unsweetened tea instead of sweet tea.2 I’m not drinking sodas. I’ve generally avoided alcoholic drinks, but had a glass of bourbon at our Valentine’s Dinner. My energy level feels more consistent through the day without the sugary sodas and extra caffeine. And I’m sleeping better. Wins all around.
Exercise wise, I’m just focused on movement.3 I’m walking regularly. My wife and I have started taking long walks on the weekends, exploring the trails that are literally in our backyard. I’m trying to walk at lunch and walk to meetings around campus. I’m not running on a treadmill — or running at all. I might get to that point, but that’s down the road.
I do want to address the tech side of this. I purchased a Withings Body+ scale, and it syncs my weight to my Apple Health account. I use Happy Scale to track weight because it does a nice job of showing averages instead of just focusing on the lowest weigh in. I’m tracking activity and workouts with Apple Watch. I tend to be a data person, and I like having all these metrics. I just need to make sure I’m not fixated on the metrics. Again, the main goal is feeling better and developing healthy habits.
Two months in, I feel like I’m heading in the right direction. I’m making long-term lifestyle changes, and I know this is just a start. I plan to check back in here every month or so with an update.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. And he’s trying to be healthier.
Clearly, I’ve not bought in to intuitive eating 100%. I’m still trying to lose weight and I still weigh myself regularly. If you want to learn more about intuitive eating, I recommend Rachael Hartley’s blog.↩︎
I’m in South Carolina, y’all. Around here, sweet tea is the default. ↩︎
This is another intuitive eating thing. More here.↩︎
Star Trek is all about the characters and relationships on the ship. With all the new series on Paramount+, they’ve introduced a bunch of interesting characters that I’ve grown to love. With Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard starting next week, I figured I’d share five new characters1 who I’m glad are part of the Star Wars Universe.
WARNING: A HANDFUL OF SPOILERS BELOW FOR DISCOVERY, STRANGE NEW WORLDS, PRODIGY AND LOWER DECKS.
Played by Mary Wiseman on Star Trek: Discovery. When Star Trek first relaunched with Discovery, Tilly was such a different type of crew member. For all of the great Star Trek characters over the years, very few were quirky and likable.2 Her relationships with Burnham, Stamets and Saru are wonderful. I wasn’t happy how they used her over the last season — eventually shipping her off to Starfleet Academy — but I hope next season includes a healthy dose of Tilly.
Voiced by Rylee Alazraqui on Star Trek: Prodigy. If you haven’t seen Prodigy, you’re missing out. Rok-Tahk is my favorite character from the crew. At first, Rok appears to be a fierce creature, but once the universal translator kicks in, you figure out that despite her intimidating form, she’s actually just a young girl with an interest in science. Her relationship with the Janeway hologram was encouraging and nurturing and I loved every minute of it. I look forward to seeing how she interacts with Admiral Janeway next season.
Jes Bush on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I know Nurse Chapel appears in the Original Series and a couple of movies, but Jes Bush’s interpretation of the character is so different and distinctive. Chapel is incredibly smart and capable. And yes, she has a crush on Spock, but their relationship is much more nuanced and complex. We know where this character is heading, but I look forward to seeing how this version of Chapel develops.
Voiced by Tawny Newsome on Star Trek: Lower Decks. Lower Decks has so many great characters, but Mariner is my favorite. She’s a screw up, who also happens to be incredibly capable when she wants to be. Her relationship with her friends, her rivals and her mom are all complex and delightful. Depending on the episode, Beckett may create a massive problem — or she could be the one to save the day. The end of last season was heartbreaking when her mom and friends thought she’d sold out the Cerritos crew. Many of the relationships were patched up in the finale, but I wonder if there will be lasting repercussions.
Doug Jones on Star Trek: Discovery. Look, I know Captain Michael Burham is the star of the show, but Saru is the captain I’d want to serve under. Intelligent, thoughtful and competent. His personal backstory is wonderful, and I’m really interested to see his relationship with the leader of Vulcan develop. I’m not sure how Doug Jones can express so much emotion through all of that makeup. It’s seriously impressive.
Finally, while it’s not a character, I want to give a shoutout to Lower Deck’s California class ships, especially the U.S.S. Cerritos. The idea that there are some average ships in the fleet is great. Other Star Trek shows focus on the glamorous flagship, but not every ship is the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Well… Five new and one reimagined.
You could argue that Barclay was quirky, but he was intentionally annoying. Neelix was intended to be quirky, but he was really just creepy.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I decided to add a now page to my site. My challenge was deciding what to include on the page. I already had a pretty complete about page. After looking at a collection of now pages, I realized that there isn’t a single formula or approach. So for my first attempt, here’s what I decided to add.
What I’m working on
Recently written
Recent media favorites
Active websites and profiles
Social media accounts
I also moved the status of the fish in the header to this page. The fish changes from time to time based on my mood so that explanation makes more sense on my “now” page.
I’m sure my approach will change over time. Everything needs to be manually updated and I’m thinking I’ll update every month or so.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I feel like I always write things that are either “tweet” length or “long.” I don’t feel like I ever post anything in between. This tendency isn’t new… I’ve always written that way and I’m not sure why. Most of my favorite online writers routinely share posts of various lengths, but I’ve never changed my approach. As I try to get back in the rhythm of writing, I think I need to embrace the middle ground. Opting to post reflections more than complete essays. Questions instead of answers. Paragraphs instead of pages. We’ll see how it goes.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
For years, I listened to local sports talk radio on my commute home. I live in the middle of SEC country, and — especially during football season — the talk shows were full of callers who were mostly annoying and overly opinionated.1 The host of the show was great and I really enjoyed his commentary, so I kept listening. One day, after a particularly obnoxious sequence of callers, I tweeted something like “I’d love a sports talk show without callers” and tagged him. He responded, thanked me for listening, but said that most people didn’t want to listen to him talk for a couple of hours. They tuned in for the callers. That was the format.
Audience commentary is part of every type of media. With newspapers, we’ve long had editorial pages, op-eds and letters to the editor. Radio has a whole sub-genre of talk radio that features callers giving their opinions and arguing with hosts. Television never really developed a feedback format because of obvious technical limitations, but developed something similar. Panel discussion shows are basically talk radio with a standard roster of characters, arguing with each other and representing viewer opinions.
The internet made commentary even easier. In the early days of the web, every news site and blog added comments to their stories to encourage feedback. The feedback quickly turned to meaningless noise, filled with extreme opinions and spam. Social media took it one step further. Facebook and Twitter are essentially just the comments section. Commentary became the media.
Some people love to read the letters to the editor and listen to talk radio. Many people — judging by ratings — watch television shows with a panel of guests arguing with each other about news or sports. There are people want to read the comments on news sites, although I don’t understand why anyone would subject themselves to that. And there are people who truly enjoy social media. This is all commentary-driven media.
I’ve realized that I don’t like any of those things.
I like to read articles that provoke thought. I visit news sites and blogs that cover my (many) areas of interest. I use an RSS reader to track all of these sites. I follow photographers, videographers and creators who make original art. I listen to podcasts that add value and knowledge. I follow people on social media who are experts in their field, but I rarely respond or comment on their posts. Yes, I want to be entertained, but I also want to learn and be challenged. In contrast to the commentary-driven media, I suppose this is expert-driven media.
The reality is that most people prefer the commentary-driven approach. They feel part of the conversation. They can contribute if they want. They want to hear the opinions of others and argue about topics. Our current social media landscape was designed for them. They want to feel that their opinion is a vital part of the conversation. That is the format.
Cultivating an expert-driven media environment is tougher and it appeals to a smaller audience. But there is a significant audience. There are plenty of people who want to read posts and articles from people who know what they are talking about. An ample audience of people who want to listen to podcasts and watch informative videos. We just have to design a system that prioritizes meaningful content and encourages sharing well-thought out responses over quick, thoughtless knee-jerk commentary.
With the implosion of Twitter, I feel like we have an opportunity to build something different. I’m happy with Micro.Blog right now and look forward to its continued development. I’m interested in the resurgence of RSS 2 and the momentum behind new indie-web protocols like ActivityPub. I’m encouraged that so many people are experimenting with different approaches to “social” media. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Every third caller wants their team to throw more to the tight end.
Some of us never let RSS go.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I ever found my footing after the pandemic shut everything down. I’ve been trucking along keeping everything going, but the last half of 2022 was especially challenging. This rhythm and pace is not sustainable and it’s time to reset the balance between family, work and school.
Family is first, as always, but even more so now that my oldest is about to head off to college. I want to spend quality time with her before she moves out and heads to school. Work is going well, but is constantly busy. With graduate school, I’m taking the spring semester off to spend some time getting into a new routine.
For 2023, I need to focus on four areas: health, writing, organization and creativity.
Focus on physical and mental health
I’ve got a list of things to work on — from getting enough sleep to finding time to walk at lunch. I feel like I know what I need to do, but making time for a healthy life has been challenging over the last year. I need to develop consistent, healthy habits.
Write more
I’ve been writing for school almost constantly for the last year. And that’s great, but it’s come at the expense of writing for myself. I’ll still be writing for grad school, and hopefully getting some journal articles published this year, but I want to expand the type of writing I’m doing and improve my skills. Writing on bobwertz.com (via Micro.Blog) is going to be my primary personal writing outlet for the year.
Smartly organized
In general, I’m organized, but there are some areas that are an absolute train wreck. I’m working on some using the tools I have — like Notion and Tot — more effectively. There’s a fine line here, though. Time spent on getting organized is time that I’m not working out, writing or designing.
Rediscover creative endeavors
I’m a designer, but I’m not designing much right now. I have a bunch of projects, from stickers to typefaces that I want to work on. These always end up on the back burner when family commitments and grad school deadlines take priority. I need to carve out some time for visually creative projects that I’ve been neglecting.
I’m looking forward to hitting the reset button and restoring some balance to my slightly chaotic life. In past years, I’ve shared a check-in post at the midpoint of the year to evaluate how I’m doing on my theme and goals. This year, I’m going to try and post quarterly to keep myself accountable.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I get this question a lot. I balance a full-time job, my family and grad school. I’ve been in grad school part time since I started my Master’s program in 2018 and I’ve become pretty good at carefully planning out and scheduling my time.
In 2022, I never really had a chance to achieve a balance. At work, there was a lot of change. My boss resigned in January and I assumed some of his responsibilities. I took over managing photography and videography staff again. We rolled out a new logo, which was — and still is — a lot of work. All of these things were positive developments, but required increasingly more of my time and attention.
At home, things were challenging. My wife tore her bicep in January and then had to have surgery in the summer, right as she was moving to a different school. My oldest started her senior year of high school and is trying to figure out where she wants to go to college, but then tore her ACL in a lacrosse tournament and also had to have surgery. My two youngest each started a new school, which changed our morning routine significantly. Everyone is doing great, but there is always a lot going on.
And grad school has been fine. I’ve done well. I’ve written lots of papers that I am proud of and had research accepted to a conference. I’m trying to get my papers edited and submitted to journals. Classes have been good, but honestly, I haven’t enjoyed grad school for the last year. And that has been weighing on me.
The balance is off.
I’ve been in grad school part-time for 4.5 years straight at this point — 3 for the Master’s and 1.5 for the Ph.D. With all the changes in my job and life, I wasn’t getting the most out of my Ph.D. studies.1 So I’ve decided to take the spring semester off. It’s a tough decision — I’ve been steadily working on my degrees one or two classes at a time — but it’s the right decision. I need to pause and reset the balance between work, home and school. I’m not quitting, just taking a break. I know I’ll start back up in the summer or fall, fully recharged and ready to continue to the finish.
One of my professors told me that by working on my Ph.D. part time, I had the “gift of time.” Most people have to sprint through their program so they can get a teaching job. By not rushing through my program, I could get the most out of it and enjoy it.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
I haven’t had this Micro.Blog site for long, but I’ve written at my other site – Sketchbook B – for almost 15 years.1 Over time, my long form blog posts there developed a pattern. I had a basic structure with headers, footnotes, divider lines and a bio at the end. And I want to replicate some of that here and needed a post to experiment with. This is that post.2
I’ve already been using an H2 as a subhead and I like the way that looks. Like many writers, I often want to add footnotes as I write. Over on Sketchbook B, I used asterisks, but since I’m writing in Markdown, that’s kind of a pain in the ass. So I figured I’d go with superscript numbers, which is more conventional anyway.3 I continue to use divider lines to separate the body of the post from the footnotes, and a second divider line between the footnotes and a bio.
I’m not sure what I want to do with the bio. I found that most of my traffic came from Google, so the reader was dropping in on my site with no idea who I was. For now, I’ve decided to go with the shortest one sentence bio that I could and set it at the end in italics.
One aspect that I haven’t yet decided on is images. On my Squarespace-hosted site, each post had a preview image and I’d include a post image. So far on bobwertz.com, I don’t need a preview image, but I do think I want to create some type of standard post image to include under the subhead. I’ll keep experimenting, but I feel good about my basic post format.
I’m going to keep writing at Sketchbook B, but the content will be mostly Adobe Creative Cloud tips.
I’m using a trial of MarsEdit right now. And I really love the preview engine that lets me see how this is going to look, even before I post it. Looks like I’ll be purchasing a license.
I don’t love how the superscripts mess with the overall line spacing. It just feels wrong. I may try to come up with another approach.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
This year was unexpected. Just about nothing went as planned — sometimes better, sometimes worse. Looking back over my photos, I took fewer “artsy” shots and mostly focused on my family. Here are my favorite shots from the past year, starting top left:
Evening snowfall. We don’t get much snow in Columbia, South Carolina. When it snowed in the evening in January, every thing was peaceful and serene… and then it was fun and chaotic, when all neighborhood kids came outside to play in the snow.
Norah’s prom. Our oldest headed to prom and had a great time with her friends.
Jill’s birthday. There are nine candles on the cake. Not the correct number of candles, but the perfect amount of light.
Soda City Market. We headed to our local market and took this picture as we were leaving. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here — Jill hugs her kettle corn while Ryan proudly presents a giant carrot — but I love the shot.
Ryan playing the viola. Ryan started playing the viola this year and seems to enjoy it.
Sunrise at Hilton Head. Took a trip to Hilton Head with the family and woke up early enough to catch sunrise.
Lizzy’s birthday selfie. Here’s the thing… Our selfies are typically terrible and we have to take a bunch to get anything usable, but I grabbed this shot at Liz’s birthday dinner and we both like it. So it has to be one of my favorites.
Skee-Ball. I love skee-ball, and this beautiful skee-ball machine was at the arcade where we had Ryan’s birthday party.
This is the fifth year I’ve done a Favorite 8. You can see my previous posts from 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 on my other site, Sketchbook B.
Picking out my favorite pictures from the last year.
Back in 2018, Instagram users started posting their algorithmically-generated “Best Nine” — essentially the nine shots from the year that had the most likes. When I looked at mine, the images that everyone else liked weren’t necessarily my favorite pictures from the previous year. I enjoyed the process of digging through all the images from the previous year — many of which I had forgotten about. I curated and built my #Fav8 in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. If you are interested in learning more about the thought process behind Favorite 8, the 2018 post has the most detail.
This year, I’m not posting to Twitter, so I’m ditching the #Fav8 hashtag and just going with “Favorite 8.” Although on Micro.Blog, I’m thinking ❤️8️⃣ might be appropriate.
In the past, several friends have done this too, so this is just a reminder that it’s time to start working on selecting your Favorite 8 shots from 2022. I’ll probably post mine next week.
There’s lots of hype about Mastodon as people flee Twitter, but lately, I’ve been thinking about how brands will function on federated social sites.
If the big brands in the world are going to give Mastodon a shot, they aren’t going to just join an existing instance… they’ll host their own server for all of their related accounts. Let’s say you are a large international brand like Starbucks. Are you going to use @starbucks@mastodon.social? Not when you can have @official@starbucks.com, @news@starbucks.com, and @customercare@starbucks.com. If you run your own instance, you never have to worry about someone grabbing a handle you wanted to use. No worries about the content moderation policy on the instance you’ve selected. And because of the way ActivityPub works, your posts will be visible across Mastodon and other compatible services. As a bonus, it’s much harder for a fraudulent account to spoof you if you connect your federated social account to your primary domain name.
(In reality, someone will create a service to manage this for brands and charge big money for it, because there is no way a corporate IT department is going to accept the risk of running a Mastodon instance.)
When the internet was becoming popular, I remember being told that traditional media was just broadcasting. The internet promised more than just broadcasting, it offered “engagement.”
Don’t let people fool you. Engagement happened before the internet. People read the newspaper and talked about stories with their family and friends. They watched the evening news and discussed it at the water cooler at work the next day. They wrote letters to the editor to express their agreement or disapproval. They called radio shows to ask questions. They bought classified ads to share a job listing or sell a car. People engaged with media before the internet.
Instead, what the internet offered was an instant, two-way feedback loop between publisher and audience. Comments on blogs and news sites led the way. Then, social media provided the ultimate in real time engagement with metrics that let you track everything.
Instant response. Maximum engagement. Integrated with the content.
And how has that worked out? Thoughtful comments on blogs were quickly drowned out with spam. News sites were filled with reactionary opinions. Social media offered both reactionary opinions and spam and as a bonus channeled hate and harassment. Managing commentary takes as much staff and resources as creating the content, but people love providing their opinion and arguing their point of view, which drives traffic. And that traffic was the most important thing to the companies like Facebook and Twitter that sell the advertising that surrounds the hate.
As Twitter implodes and some people look for what’s next, I think we need to reexamine the relationship between publishing and engagement. Creation and commentary. True engagement is what follows when we create high-quality, beneficial content. We need to restore a focus on publishing the content, not just on the commentary. And our new technologies need to support that balance.
P.S. One of the things I like about Micro.Blog is the absence of metrics. No follower counts. No likes. No retweets. If you are used to obsessively checking how many likes your last post got, the absence of metrics takes a little getting used to, but it resets the balance between publishing and engagement.
P.S.S. It occurs to me that the most profitable company in the world, Apple, creates a lot of content without maintaining a traditional social media presence.
I’m been an AIGA member for much of my professional career. I was active at a chapter level for over a decade. Over that time, people repeatedly tried to reimagine the central organization, its chapter system and its funding mechanisms. No one was ever satisfied. They wanted to make it better, and then every designer would want to join and help change the world.
And yet, the organization got smaller.
AIGA has meant a lot to me and it definitely helped my career, but structurally, it’s been broken for a long time. It was built in a pre-Internet era. A time when the only way you got to see a legendary designer was to go to a conference or have them come to a local AIGA chapter. When networking was done primarily at the local bar. A time when being aligned with a large national organization gave you needed credibility and clout.
But now, YouTube means you can see all of your favorite designers deliver inspirational talks from the comfort of your own home. You can network with anyone, anywhere, anytime. The world changed, but the structure remained, and that was before the pandemic hit.
AIGA isn’t alone. Lots of member-based organizations are trying to figure out how to move forward. These organizations can bring value to their members, but they will need to embrace a different approach, building valuable online communities that may or may not be connected with local chapters.
In the end, we’ll see how AIGA’s latest re-envisioning works out. I’m optimistic, but time will tell if they are able to make the hard choices.
It seems like everything is going to subscription pricing. I subscribe to a whole host of streaming services, bundles, news sites, and software. Many of them don’t always seem worth the money, but as I look at what I subscribe to, I realize that I don’t mind supporting products and creators that I love. So here are a list of services that I really, really like and happily pay for:
I backed the Micro.Blog Kickstarter and I’ve had a paid subscription ever since — even when I wasn’t using it every day. I’m happy to support a product with a viewpoint that aligns with my values, and Micro.Blog is that type of service. Now that Twitter is unstable, I’m glad Micro.Blog is my home base.
I’ve listened to Myke Hurley and Jason Snell talk about Apple and the larger tech industry on Upgrade since 2014. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but this is the one I listen to every Monday. Paying for the “+” gets me ad-free episodes and an extra segment, but, I’m just happy to support a show I love.
Jason Snell and Dan Moren write Six Colors. I get additional articles and an extra podcast on Friday afternoons, but again, a way to support writers that I like. (Dan also writes a series of science fiction spy novels that I like a lot. Check them out, too.)
A distraction-free writing app that lets me write in Markdown. I’ve used Ulysses for a long time and almost everything I write starts here (including this post).
I don’t spend a ton of time over on Fontstruct, but I love it dearly. Fontstruct lets you build modular fonts and export them. Tons of fun and a great community. It’s free to use, but the 5 euros helps pay the bills.
Notion is… a lot of different things in one package. I use it for tracking tasks, managing grad school projects, jotting notes and planning for the future. Well worth the $5 a month.
I’m a Ph.D. student. Zotero is a citation manager that lets me track all of the sources I need for my papers. It’s not the prettiest app, but it’s incredibly powerful. Free to use, but by $20/year gets me more cloud storage. In a couple of years, I’ll happily upgrade to the $60/year plan. Worth every penny.
I’ve been preparing for the demise of Twitter since long before Elon Musk made the offer to purchase it. In 2016, I wrote a post — Twitterless — about what would happen if Twitter “disappeared tomorrow.” I outlined a couple of key areas that would be problematic for me and possible solutions.
A year and a half later, I wrote a follow up post — Twitterless, Part II — that noted my progress on replacing the role Twitter plays for me, and the challenges that still existed.
Times are changing, though, and I honestly believe that we all need to be diversifying — and if possible, owning — our social media presence. Becoming less reliant on the big social media behemoths is the first step.
I ended that post with a promise to follow up on my progress, but as Facebook became more and more evil, I focused on moving away from Facebook. Replacing Twitter was pushed to the back burner.
Now that Twitter armageddon may or may not be here, it’s clearly time that I renew my quest to find an alternative. I figured I’d check back in on those questions that I asked back in 2016 and see how I’ve done:
I’d lose a bunch of contacts. Yep. I’m going to lose a bunch of people who follow me on Twitter. I’ve tried to connect with people on other platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, but I can’t find everyone, and you know what, I’m okay with that.
I’d change how I watch live events. This is still a problem as I noted yesterday. Live events are fun to follow with other people, and Twitter is great for that. No other service is quite like Twitter for those instant commentary events.
I’d have to rethink how I find articles and stories. I use Feedbin as an RSS reader, but that’s not my only solution. I subscribe directly to The New York Times and The Washington Post. And — as shocking as it might seem — I also get a lot of value out of Apple News+, which I get with our Apple One bundle. My local paper, The State, is included in with Apple News+ and I catch a random assortment of articles from sources I don’t normally read. It’s a nice way to diversify the news I see every day.
I’d have to rethink how I share content. When I wrote this, I felt like traffic to my blog was coming primarily from Twitter, but over time, that lessened and most come through search engines. I’ll still create and share, but I’ll just use whatever channels are available at the time.
I’d change the way I use Facebook/Instagram. I once thought that Facebook and Instagram might provide a solution. I’ve mostly left Facebook, and Meta seems to only care about the Metaverse now anyway. I’m not that interested in Instagram now that it’s trying to be TikTok. I don’t feel any better about Facebook than I do about Twitter.
I’d try to find a replacement. I backed the Micro.Blog Kickstarter back in 2017 and I’ve had a paid account ever since. I originally connected Micro.Blog to my Squarespace site, which worked well over the years. I believe in the idea of a feed-based, open social media platform, but because I was still using Twitter, I didn’t fully commit to using Micro.Blog.
I’ve still got Sketchbook B and it’s still hosted on Squarespace, but I made the decision this summer that all of my future blog and short-form posting will be hosted on Micro.Blog, specifically, bobwertz.com. Why? I love the community, and the platform lets me easily post my content and crosspost to other services if I want to. It also lets me follow people who post on Mastodon, and they can follow me at @bobwertz@bobwertz.com. I like writing my blog posts in Ulysses in Markdown and the just post them directly to my site. I feel Micro.Blog gives me the best of all of the potential options and I’m happy with that choice.
Looking back, I think I’ve prepared pretty well for the potential downfall of Twitter. I’m not leaving completely, but I’ve got one foot out the door and I feel good about the solutions I’ve worked out for me.
If Twitter ceases to be enjoyable, I’ll leave. To be honest, I’ll miss it. I joined in 2008 and 14 years is a long time to use any service. It’s part of my daily routine. At the end of the day, though, if a service isn’t making my life better, I’m better off without it.
One thing that Twitter excels at — which will be difficult to replace — is commentary during live events. Last night, I was able to follow a range of commentary on several college football games and the World Series all from my Twitter feed.
It’s not just who I follow, it’s also the way the service is constructed. When following a bunch of live events, you need to use the non-algorithmic timeline. Twitter still, begrudgingly, allows for that. Facebook has many of the people I follow on Twitter, but the comments are jumbled, appearing whenever the algorithm decides, often incoherently out of order. And I can’t see following my South Carolina Gamecocks on another large service, like Linked In. 🤣
Perhaps the real question is if I need the stream of commentary at all? I get value out of live commentary from sports journalists and other fans. I feel like it ads to my enjoyment, but I enjoyed watching games before Twitter existed. Maybe live events is one of those areas where I need to reexamine my reliance on social media.
This post was originally posted on December 28, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
My favorite shots from the last year.
A few years ago, I started picking my eight favorite shots from the last year instead of the automated top 9 that had become popular on Instagram. I’ve written about the process* before so I’m not going to recount that here, but here are my favorite eight shots from the year. (I took lots of shots I liked this year and it was actually really tough to narrow it down to eight shots. I could have picked eight shots just from just our New York trip.)
Cocky. The year started with a photoshoot with Cocky and we used FaceTime to call my Cocky-obsessed niece.
Carolina Coliseum. On the same day as the photo shoot, I grabbed this shot of the empty hallways of the Carolina Coliseum. That’s where the journalism school was when I was an undergraduate student.
Masters. This spring, I graduated from my MA program. The commencement ceremony was held at Williams-Brice Stadium because of COVID.
Beach. The family at the beach in Charleston. Love this shot of everybody.
Lacrosse. Norah’s club team won their bracket at a tournament in Lake Norman, North Carolina. They rallied to win four straight and she played really well. The team posed with their championship shirts after the final.
Ruby. Our cat. Love the detail in this super close up shot.
The Big Mo. We weren’t ready to return to the theatre, but we wanted to see Shang Chi. So we headed to the Big Mo, a drive-in theatre in Monetta, South Carolina.
Lady Liberty. We made a trek to New York with the family right before Christmas and visited Liberty Island.
* One change from my previous process: I made this years collage in Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, mass comm researcher, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He got vaccinated and boosted to protect his community. #TeamModerna
This post was originally posted on December 12, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Remembering that time I had coffee with a design legend at the now-closed Vista Starbucks.
Chris Trainor at The State broke the news last week that the Vista Starbucks in Columbia is permanently closed. I used to meet people there from time-to-time when I needed a place downtown to work for a couple of hours.* I haven’t been to that store in years — lately, I’ve been more likely to stop by their new Bull Street location — but one of my favorite professional stories took place at that now-vacant storefront.
Back in April 2008, AIGA South Carolina hosted a lecture by Stefan Sagmeister. At the time, he was probably considered one of the most famous designers in the world and was doing a book tour. Sagmeister’s staff had arranged all of his travel so his stay in Columbia wasn’t our typical speaker visit. He was flying into Columbia on the morning of the lecture and then, after the event, was taking a car to Charlotte for another lecture the next day. I picked him up at the airport and we took him to lunch at Motor Supply with some board members and students from the design program at USC.
Our normal routine at the time was to take the speaker to the hotel after lunch so they could relax and get some work done, but Sagmeister wasn’t spending the night in Columbia so we didn’t have place for him to hang out. We offered him Marius’s office at the School of Art, but Stefan simply wanted a place where he could grab some coffee and check his email. Starbucks in the Vista was the location we settled on.
For three hours, we sat at the outside tables at the corner of Gervais and Lincoln. It was misting rain so we stayed at the tables with the green Starbucks umbrellas. He checked email, drank coffee and smoked, but mostly, we talked about design and the creative process.** We also talked about his “fame” and he noted that if he were truly famous, he wouldn’t be able to sit at an outside table at a busy intersection without being noticed.
This is the only picture I took of the Sagmeister lecture.
The lecture that night went exceptionally well. About 160 people from all over South Carolina gathered to hear his talk at the State Museum auditorium. But my strongest memory from his visit was sitting at the Starbucks in the Vista with Sagmeister and talking shop for a few hours. He was kind and thoughtful and I appreciated getting to chat with him.
Hopefully, soon, another store or restaurant will fill the vacant storefront, but every time I pass that intersection, I’ll think of the old Vista Starbucks and Stefan Sagmeister.
* Keep in mind that there were very few independent coffee shops in Columbia at the time. And reliable wifi wasn’t a given in 2008 like it is today.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, mass comm researcher, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He got vaccinated and boosted to protect his community. #TeamModerna
This post was originally posted on November 17, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A couple of old typefaces get new versions.
This week I released a couple of new display typefaces based on some of my older designs: SbB Power Grid and SbB Intermodal Stencil. These designs have been available before in different forms, but these new versions are significantly refined and expanded. Both SbB Power Grid and SbB Intermodal Stencil are available for purchase at MyFonts.
SbB Power Grid
SbB Power Grid is a bold display typeface with an industrial feel. The family has four styles — Regular, Inline, Stencil and Rounded and corresponding italics. This is actually the third version of Power Grid. I spent time refining the look and feel of the design and I’m really happy with where it landed. The Stencil and Inline versions in particular would work well in athletic or industrial branding.
SbB Power Grid is available as a family for $19 at MyFonts. Individual fonts are $9 each.
SbB Intermodal Stencil
SbB Intermodal Stencil is my futuristic, sci-fi stencil system. I’ve written about Intermodal Stencil and my experiments with variable type. I’m happy to finally release a new version. I’ve refined the letterforms, added a couple of alternates and two italic angles. The variable version includes three axes — width, slant and stencil opening. The stencil opening serves as a type of optical correction. At smaller sizes, the larger stencil cuts work better.
What’s the deal with multiple italic* angles? When you are designing a typeface that intended to be used in large blocks of text, the designer needs to pick one consistent italic angle. But when you are talking about a display typeface, an italic angle is just an aesthetic choice. So I’ve decided to provide multiple angles for Intermodal. Intermodal features 5 degree and 10 degree obliques. If you use the variable font, you can pick any italic slant between 0 and 15 degrees.
SbB Intermodal Stencil is available as a family for $19 at MyFonts. Individual fonts are $9 each.
* Also, these are really obliques, not italics. An italic is typically drawn in a different style, while an oblique is a slanted version of the upright Roman. But most people and designers just call all slanted text “italics” so I decided it was time to abandon that particular linguistic fight.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, mass comm researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. Bob occasionally and begrudgingly posts toTwitterandInstagram. He wears a mask and got vaccinated to protect his community. #TeamModerna
This post was originally posted on November 6, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
My new MacBook Pro
Y’all. I’ve only had it for less than two weeks, but I love this computer so much. I don’t really need to write a review. Every reviewthat’s been writtenabout the new MacBook Pro*essentially says the same thing. The computer is unbelievably fast. The battery life seems endless. The screen is insanely sharp. The ports are back. The keyboard is solid. The notch is strange at first, but then pretty much disappears.
I went with the 14-inch version in Space Gray. It’s the perfect size for what I need for writing and type design. Some of my designer friends have expressed surprise that I didn’t go with the 16-inch screen, but I don’t really want to carry around that computer (or the accompanying charger brick) in my bag.
If I need more screen real estate, I can easily plug it into an external display. I probably won’t do that often, though, because the MacBook Pro’s screen is beautiful and my external display is woefully inadequate in comparison. You have to see the MacBook Pro in person to understand just how sharp and bright this screen is. It’s an amazing piece of technology and it will be a while before an external screen of this quality is affordable.**
Could I have gotten by with the M1 MacBook Air and saved myself some money? Yes, absolutely. I’m not editing video or doing massively intensive computational tasks. But stepping up to the MacBook Pro gets you the gorgeous screen, the updated industrial design, MagSafe, some additional ports (that I probably won’t use) and some extra speed. Well worth the added investment to me.
So far, I’m happy with my purchase. The whole package feels premium — solid and durable. I look forward to using it in coffee shops, conference rooms and classrooms for many years to come.
* I understand why Apple switched the name to MacBook years ago, but this computer looks like more like a Powerbook to me. 😎
** Apple’s Pro Display XDR is not affordable.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, mass comm researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He wears a mask and got vaccinated to protect his community. #TeamModerna
This post was originally posted on November 6, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
My thesis is finally available on Google Scholar
My master’s thesis, Brand New: How Visual Context Shapes Initial Response to Logos and Corporate Visual Identity Systems, has finally made it to ProQuest and appears in Google Scholar* searches. If you have access to the ProQuest database through a university or public library, you can download the full PDF. I’m proud of how it turned out, and look forward to continuing my research into visual context during my Ph.D. studies. Here’s the abstract:
When a new logo is released, it does not have an established meaning in the mind of the viewer. As logos have become more highly scrutinized by consumers and critics, it has become more important to understand consumers’ initial response to logos. While other studies have researched the impact of aesthetic choices on viewer reaction to logos, few researchers have attempted to understand the effect of the surrounding visual identity system when a new logo is introduced. This study combines a content analysis of the logo review website Brand New with the voting data from their polls to understand how visual context correlates with a viewer’s initial response. The study also takes into account the different types of context that can be presented – from logo variations and environmental examples to videos and animation – and their varied effects. Results show that most types of visual context correlate to improved viewer response.
Anyway, feel free to check it out. If you don’t have access and want a copy, reach out and I’ll send you a PDF. Now comes the difficult part — editing my 84-page, 17,000 word thesis into a 5,000 to 7,000 word journal article.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, mass comm researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He wears a mask and got vaccinated to protect his community. #TeamModerna
This post was originally posted on October 30, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Discovering the story behind a 50-year-old mistake
Like all great quests, this one starts with a story from my childhood. I was probably only 12 years old when my dad told me a story about how a postcard company had mistakenly claimed that the Capstone building on the campus of the University of South Carolina was named after a Confederate general. The postcards were sold around South Carolina, but then pulled some time later after the mistake was discovered.
I was fascinated by how this could happen. Was it a mistake? Some placeholder text left by accident? A prank? My dad didn’t know and guessed it was some kind of joke that accidentally got left in. How long was the postcard for sale? Did people notice the mistake right away? And did people really believe that Capstone was anything but a descriptive name?
As a kid, I collected baseball cards. And one of the things I always loved was the rare “error” card. Baseball card companies would make mistakes, then reissue corrected cards. (See: Billy Ripkin’s 1989 Fleer card.) The error cards would be worth more because they were less common and the Capstone postcard seemed like an error card to me. I set out to find a copy of the infamous postcard.
After I went to college in Columbia, whenever I happened to stop in an antique store or a used book store, I’d look for the postcard. I’d randomly search eBay or Google to see if I could find the postcard. I found plenty of vintage Capstone postcards, all with the same image, but none included a claim that the building was named after a Confederate general. I knew the story was true. When I started to work at the university, there were people around who had heard the same story that my dad had told me. But there were very few details, and no evidence. The search continued off and on for over 20 years, with no luck.
Let’s take a detour and talk about Capstone for a second. There are plenty of buildings around the South named for notable Confederates, but Capstone is clearly not one of them. Capstone is a 18-story tower that was built in a residential neighborhood next to the University of South Carolina campus. It’s a residence hall that features a rotating restaurant at the top and was intended to be the anchor of campus expansion. Today, it essentially marks the eastern edge of campus and the tower has been equipped with a garnet cap that lights up to celebrate campus achievements.
A couple of months ago, I was relaying the story of the postcard to a colleague as we discussed the final History Commission report on the naming of University of South Carolina buildings. I did a quick Google search for “Capstone postcard” and the first result was the image of the same Capstone postcard I’ve seen many times before. I followed it to the California-based Etsy seller and clicked to see the back:
Ultra-modern dormitory on the campus of the University of South Carolina is unique because of the gold-hued revolving restaurant on top of the structure. The building is name in honor of Commodore Epaminondas J. Capstone, famous for his service to his school, state and the Confederacy.
That was it! Every other vintage Capstone postcard I’d seen was exactly the same, but didn’t have that final sentence. I took screenshots and clicked purchase as quickly as I could.
So our fictitious “General Capstone” wasn’t a general… he was a “Commodore” in the Confederate Navy. Thankfully, Epaminondas J. Capstone is quite the unique name, which makes it simple to track down the rest of the story.
A Google search turned up an entry in “Correct Mispronunciations of South Carolina Names” for Capstone, mentioning that the postcard was “an unintentional hoax because the photographer (who wrote the description for the postcard) accepted as fact a facetious editorial in Columbia’s State newspaper.”
Jump over to Newsbank’s South Carolina Historical Newspapers database — thanks Richland Library for the access — and finding the State’s editorial was easy. Published on January 3, 1968 and titled “Sons of Carolina,” it takes the the university to task for giving buildings descriptive names instead of naming buildings after accomplished South Carolinians. The editorial even includes the exact language from the postcard. But reading the editorial, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would read this obvious parody and accept it as fact.
Another aside… I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that in 1968 — in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement — that a Southern newspaper was demanding that state universities embrace their Southern heritage and name buildings after accomplished South Carolinians. In October of that year, the board of trustees at the University of South Carolina gave in to pressure and renamed many of their buildings after “honored” South Carolinians — several of which have now been recommended for renaming. The State*’s editorial board cheered this decision and took* a victory lap with a follow-up editorial in October 1968.
Capstone, however, was not renamed.
Further searching on other newspaper databases turned up a number of partial reprints of the editorial in the Greenwood Index-Journal and USC’s student newspaper, The Gamecock. This was common practice at the time. Newspapers would reprint a snippet of another publication’s editorials and sometimes provide their own commentary. These reprints were shortened and stripped of much of the humorous context of the editorial. The Index-Journal ran an editorial on January 5, 1968 titled “E.J. Capstone,” stripping most of the State’s more absurd examples and adding their own commentary, arguing that buildings should not be named for living people like legislators and board members. I imagine shortened editorials like these triggered the misunderstanding by the photographer, who probably never even saw the original State editorial.
The Record, Columbia’s afternoon paper, ran an article about the postcard on March 2, 1968, noting that “some people really do believe everything they read in the newspapers.” The Record noted that the postcard went into circulation around Columbia that week. Because of the immediate attention to the embarrassing error, I imagine most of the postcards were recalled and destroyed immediately, which is likely why very few of them still exist.
My postcard arrived from California a few days after I ordered it. It included a nice note from the seller commenting that my postcard was “a nice find.” Yes, it was. Quest completed. Now I just have to figure out how to display my “error card.”
Bob Wertz is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, University of South Carolina Ph.D. student, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He wears a mask and got vaccinated to protect his community. #TeamModerna
