Bob Wertz

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...

Remember the hype leading up to the introduction of the Segway? Never believe the hype until you actually know what the product is…

Wrapped up a really long middle school lacrosse season. Ryan had a great season in goal and he’s continuing to learn the craft, but I am incredibly glad that we’re done for a little while.

I’m taking a six-week summer grad school class for the first time… and damn, there is a lot of work in a short time.

Spending the morning at the Subaru dealership while they make a warranty repair to our Outback. It’s a pretty nice customer lounge with extremely average coffee.

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...

Did some grad school work after watching the Andor finale… I had some weird dreams mashing up the two…

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....

Loved this: Stop Trying to Raise Successful Kids. And start raising kind ones.

Overemphasizing individual achievement may cause a deficit of caring. But we don’t actually have to choose between the two. In fact, teaching children to care about others might be the best way to prepare them for a successful and fulfilling life.

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...