I don’t need a car right now, but in year or so, my daughter will need her car at college and I will need a car to take me back and forth to work. My wife won’t let me get a mini truck from local importer Japan Direct Motors, so maybe a Slate is the next best thing.
I’ve wanted an EV for a long while, but the timing just hasn’t been right. In a perfect world, I’d support Scout Motors which is building a factory outside of my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. I love the way the Scouts look, but the starting price for a their very nice EV pickup is around $60,000. I’ve also eyeballed other cars like the Rivian R3, but who knows when that will finally hit the market. I like a small car, but many of the smallest EVs aren’t going to make it to the United States market.
And then there is the Slate. I’ve been interested in the bare bones basic truck since they announced it. I love the idea of an infinitely customizable vehicle that starts at a low price. Then add the features you want over time.
I think the price is right at $25,000. (Imagine if the $7,500 EV tax credit was still available!) They originally planned to offer two battery packs, but settled on a single option with a range of just over 200 miles. That will work for my daily commute with plenty of range anxiety cushion to spare.
I’d want to add some options of course… Probably a full body vinyl wrap, some speakers and maybe a center console. I also really like the look of the fastback, which adds $6,000 to the cost of the car. Browsing the Slate online configuration app, you can see how large the accessory ecosystem could become.
I still have questions. I want to see the crash test results and some more reviews. But after all of the announcements today, I’m absolutely still interested.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Fun Father’s Day. Drove up to Asheville to see Norah. Headed to Looking Glass Falls. Stopped by Dolly’s on the way out of Pisgah to get some ice cream.
Survived Ryan’s lacrosse tournament in Mt. Pleasant this weekend. The heat was brutal, especially on Saturday. Ryan played well, and the team got a couple of wins. But honestly, I’m glad we are done with travel ball for the rest of the summer. It’s just too hot.
The State Newspaper in Columbia, SC shares a news story on Threads about a fatal car accident. The picture that is included is a photo of the author of the article… who was not in an accident and is very much alive. This is an ongoing problem with automated posting and vague clickbait headlines.
As part of my quest to get comfortable in Canva Affinity, I’ve been experimenting with some on-demand embroidery designs on Cotton Bureau. For embroidery, you are limited to a palette of 15 specific thread colors. When you create the product, Cotton Bureau tries to match the colors in your design to the available thread colors… which provides some unexpected results. Thankfully, Canva provides hex codes to approximate the thread colors.
To speed up my production, I made an Affinity Color Palette and figured I’d share. If you want to import the current Cotton Bureau thread palette into Affinity, here it is: 2026 Cotton Bureau Thread Colors.clr (ZIP archive).
Hopefully, it will save you a couple of minutes.
I’ve got one simple embroidered beanie on Cotton Bureau right now, my Dum Spiro Spero design, but I’ve got more embroidery designs in the works.
Bob Wertz is the Director of Research Training at the University of South Carolina, a Ph.D. student and typeface designer living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Dum Spiro Spero is the South Carolina state motto — “While I breathe, I hope.”1 It’s a beautiful statement of persistence and determination. Yes, the shirt is in Latin, and yes, that means you’ll have to explain it to people.2I recommend ordering a nice indigo blue.
If t-shirts aren’t your speed, there will also be an embroidered beanie soon, but the artwork isn’t ready quite yet.
Bob Wertz is a Ph.D. student, typeface designer, and native South Carolinian. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Our school district has a tradition where graduating seniors go back to their elementary school and walk through the halls. The kids make signs and cheer for them. Jill got to go through CES today. Such an incredible experience for the seniors and the elementary age kiddos.
On August 12, 2026, a solar eclipse will appear over Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. Many shady vendors will sell incredibly tacky shirts to commemorate the occasion. Instead, order something a little more classy. Available on Cotton Bureau.
How do I prepare to move away from Facebook, Instagram and Threads?
In 2016, I wrote a post about the things I would miss if Twitter went out of business. I identified potential pain points, and identified what steps to take just in case. After Twitter was acquired, I was able to easily leave my account.
Now, I’m thinking about what it would take to leave Meta’s products. I don’t think they are going to go out of business. They are the social media equivalent of “too big to fail.” I’ve long believed that Meta is an unethical company that builds addictive products. They’ve been awful for a long time, though, so why have I just made the decision to plan my exit? I used to enjoy Instagram, but lately, not so much. I’m posting less, and at the same time, seeing less content from people I know. I think it’s time to start the process.
When we talk about Meta, I’m talking about three products that I currently use: Facebook, Instagram and Threads. I started using Facebook in 2008 and have used Instagram and Threads since they were released.1 I now rarely log into Facebook, but I use Instagram and Threads regularly. I don’t use What’s App or Messenger, so those aren’t an issue for me.
I will note that some of the systems I adopted to leave Twitter help me with this new attempt to leave Meta. Since 2022, I’ve essentially run a P.O.S.S.E.2 set up (Publish Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) where most of my posts start on bobwertz.com via Micro.Blog and are then shared to Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads. Threads is the only Meta app that allows for this type of API access so it tends to be a little more integrated into my daily routine.
Looking at the Meta apps individually, here’s what I need to do to move away from Meta:
Facebook. I’ve mostly already left Facebook. On my About Bob page, it’s listed under “Not Updated Social.” The only thing left there are my old posts. And some of those old post contain awesome stories from when my kids were little. I downloaded a file with all the content, but I’d really like an online archive. Manton with Micro.Blog has said before that building a Facebook importer should be relatively easy. If he builds an importer like he did for Twitter, I can probably go ahead and close my Facebook page.
Instagram. Over the last few years, I’ve slowed my posting to Instagram. These days, I mostly use Instagram to view content. Increasingly, the content is ads, TikTok influencers, and AI slop. I was never a TikTok user, but I now understand why people love (and are addicted to) the short video format. Once you get sucked in, it’s easy to just sit there scrolling and scrolling. That said, I have lots of content I want to see and I think I’d rather spend my time watching one of the dozens of TV shows on my list, reading through my RSS feed, or even watching long form YouTube videos.
I do have over 15 years of images on Instagram, and while they all likely exist in my photo library, I still want to keep a record of them. Thankfully, Micro.Blog does have a way to import Instagram posts. I’ll need to do some manual clean up, since some of my Micro.Blog images are duplicated on Instagram. I’ve already downloaded my images and run a couple of test imports. It’s going to take a little while, but it’s worth it.
While I may not immediately delete the account, I do feel like I’m already at a point where I can step away. Sometime soon, I’ll probably drop a note in the bio that my Instagram feed is no longer updated, and then delete the app from my phone. I actually just flipped my account to private. I’ve always had a public account, but recently, it just seems that every new follower is a spam bot that I have to block.
Threads. Weirdly, even though it’s the social media network I’ve been on for the shortest period of time, Threads might be the hardest to replace for me right now. It’s connected to Micro.Blog, so crossposting is easy. It’s is a great source for niche news that I care about, for example: women’s college basketball and F1. While I feel like I could easily leave Instagram, I believe that Threads still adds some value for me.
But more importantly, Threads is also the place where I get the most engagement on what I share through Micro.Blog crossposting. Part of this is the Threads algorithm, but I also do know a bunch of people on Threads who respond to my posts… which leads to the biggest problem of all…
Meta’s apps are where people I actually know share updates.
The real problem with leaving Meta is that my family, friends and acquaintances are there. Facebook and Instagram especially. If I leave Meta’s ecosystem completely, how will I communicate with friends and family? How will I know what’s going on in the communities around me? Sadly, I guess the simple answer is that I won’t. No other ecosystem has the extensive network that exists on Meta’s platforms and with today’s fragmented social media infrastructure, no singular alternative is going to form to rival the number of users that Facebook and Instagram have. A very small number of my friends are on Mastodon or Bluesky.3 A choice to leave Meta products entirely is a choice to cut off connections. And I’m not 100% ready to completely sever those ties.
Which means I can’t quite get rid of Meta yet. But I’m actually closer than I thought I was. My plan is to look again at ways to preserve my Facebook and Instagram posts. I want an archive of everything. I’ll then completely pause activity on those platforms for the foreseeable future. I’ve long since deleted the Facebook app from my phone. Instagram will be next. I won’t delete those accounts yet. I’ll continue crossposting to Threads4 for the time being, but start to look for ways to get the same content on other channels. I wrote a total of six Twitterless posts, so I’ll likely follow up on this one eventually. Check back in on non-Meta social media for updates. Or just follow my RSS feed.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
I joined Instagram the month it was released in October 2010. I joined Threads minutes after it was open to the public in 2023 and is user #210,850. ↩︎
Thanks to Cotton Bureau for featuring my new “Happy Frank” shirt design in their T-Shirt Tuesday email. (And yes, I know his full name is Frankenstein’s Monster, but he just goes by Frank these days.)
Being a type designer can be weird. You create your design. Share it with the world. And then someday, unexpectedly, it shows up again.
I designed SbB Powertrain over a decade ago and I was very surprised to see it pop up in a clip of Gamecock Women’s Basketball player Ali Tournebize dunking in the 2024 Eurobasket U18 bronze medal game. Turns out that FIBA uses Powertrain as part of the identity for their Eurobasket tournament. It was used heavily for the 2024 and it looks like they are still using it in some places. Here are a couple of examples that I stumbled across.
If you look closely to the videos, Powertrain is used for the 2024 at center court and on some of the courtside screens. So much fun to see my type design in use, especially in a global context. Learn more about SbB Powertrain and my other fonts at sbbfonts.com.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
Apple seems to be one of the most tightly managed brands in the world, but they actually use their logo much more whimsically than any other big brands. I’ve written in the past about logo usagethat runs against typical brand management best practices. On the eve of their 50th anniversary, I’ve come across two more examples. I wanted to share them as a way to continue to document Apple’s approach to visual identity:
The 50th Anniversary “Logo”
Apple has artwork that essentially serves as an alternate logo for their anniversary. It’s a stylized treatment of their logo (below), which includes a rainbow of colors that harkens back to their old six color rainbow logo.
Both examples take the Apple logo shape and use it as a structure for artwork. You typically don’t see large companies allowing or promoting this kind of variability with their logo. And you rarely see an old logo pop up, even during an anniversary. The artwork feels true to the Apple brand, but runs counter to what other brands do. In brand management, rigid consistency is king. As designers, it’s worth noting that Apple of all companies allows such flexibility within their visual identity guidelines, and maybe we can learn something from how they use their logo and brand creatively.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
