Some creations are foundational. If you design a typeface, other people create things using that font. Photographers and illustrators create works of art that can be incorporated into other designs. Brand design crafts visual and verbal foundations that others can build on. These days, I’m much more interested in these foundational creations than I am designing ads or billboards.
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 not revolutionize transportation.
The Time article clearly explains all of the issues that plagued the Segway: cost, safety, sidewalks. Then conveniently ignores those issues to embrace the hype. In 2001, Segway promised a plant would produce 40,000 Segways a month, but in reality, the company only sold 140,000 in the product’s entire lifespan. Most of those weren’t sold to consumers.
Why do I bring this up? Because Jony Ive and Sam Altman are promising an AI device that will revolutionize how we use computers. Lots of people trust Ive and his track record with Apple. And Sam Altman has steered Open AI and ChatGPT to be the current leader of the AI industry. OpenAI is pushing the hype themselves, buying ad space to sell people… something?1 People are rushing to fill in the unspoken details with their hopes for a new device. Journalists are writing about all the things that this partnership could bring. And yet, there is nothing tangible.
I’m not buying the hype yet. Maybe this new device will be a true revolution and someday replace all of our computers. But based on rumors and Ive’s track record, it could just as easily be an expensive AI-powered necklace with lots of sensors that’s made of some special gold alloy and is voice controlled. The fact is that we don’t know any details, and I’m not even sure Ive and Altman know all the details. I believe they will release something, and when they do, we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, beware hype without details.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
I was served a really strange OpenAI+Jony Ive ad on one of the streaming platforms. I skipped it. ↩︎
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.
My first idea for a colored font was to make a pattern. I played with a couple of different patterns, but settled relatively quickly on making a plaid. One challenge was related to the scale of the pattern in relation to the size of the letters. My original plaid pattern was much bigger, but didn’t work well with some letters. I tried a couple of different sizes, but ended up with this one. This pattern is often associated with lumberjacks, but I think my wife has pajamas with this plaid pattern.
I wanted to create a bright multicolored design. Really lean into the color theme. (And I always love to create Fontstruct designs that use a single brick.) I started with a square pixel, but eventually switched to a circle. The round dot reminded me of a Lite-Brite. I used Adobe Color to pick a color palette that would work on a black background. I wanted some whimsy, so I created a bouncing effect… Uppercase letters create a character in a higher position. Lowercase letters drop them down a block. So if you alternate case, the letters bounce up and down.
Another random idea was to build a font that would work with 3D glasses. To be honest, I don’t have any 3D glasses laying around, but this feels like watching a 3D movie without the special glasses. So mission accomplished. I kept the design simple, because the type needs to be large to experience the effect.
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Not sure if any of these will be selected as winners or honorable mentions, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. And I can’t wait to see what everyone else does.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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 prices increased dramatically. We moved on to other places that we loved, too.2 While it was disappointing to get priced out of one of our favorite places, honestly, the experience was so great, I’m just glad we had a number of years to enjoy it.
This week, they were selected as the best hotel in America by TripAdvisor and #8 internationally. If you are looking to stay in Charleston and it’s in your budget, stay at the French Quarter Inn. It’s a wonderful experience and worth every penny.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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. I built a font on Fontstruct in 2009 with black and white flags, so with the new color font tools, I colorized the signal flags and updated the design. I called it SbB Foxtrot Sierra Charlie1 and I’m really happy with how it turned out.2 Fontstruct now allows you to download a COLR v1 color webfont and it’s free to download if you are a Fontstruct Patron.
I’m going to keep playing around with it, but I think color fonts will be a custom, niche tool with limited applications.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
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.
Happy Motherâs Day, Liz. Grabbed this shot at the lacrosse field the other day waiting for practice to end. The kiddos are lucky to have you, and Iâm so happy we get to do this parenting thing together.
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 worn down. Tired. Hope lifts us up and moves us forward.
Over the last few months, I lost hope. I struggled to find the positives. It was so incredibly hard to move forward… to shake the tiredness… to focus… to be productive…
I need to remember why I’m working this hard.
I start a new summer class on Monday because I’m so close to being done with my Ph.D., I just need to keep going. Before I know it, I’ll be Dr. Bob. We have one more week of lacrosse and then we are basically done with organized sports until October. I’m still thinking about how to get healthier, even though I’ve failed time and time again, because I know I will feel better when I get there. I’ve got some new typeface designs that I’m working on that I’m excited about. Work is in the midst of yet another seismic shift, but I’m optimistic that the changes will be an improvement. Our government and the world is still a dumpster fire, but I’m hopeful for small signs of resistance.
Right now, I’m still tired. I’m hopeful that soon, I will get better.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
I have no tolerance for people who preach compassion, but have no compassion.
Leo XIV is notably the first person named Bob to become Pope.
Prom pictures for my Jilly.
I’m writing a paper for class and I’ve just had to cite myself for the first time. That’s a pretty funny feeling…
I know that students love the food delivery robots, but my favorite campus robot is the little grass cutting bot over by the observatory.
I need to finish a couple of class projects for the semester, but instead, I’m designing typefaces.
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:
I love the base pickup, but the fastback looks great too. 150-mile range is plenty for my commute. I’m sick of boring car colors, and as a designer, I’d love to customize the wrap. The base safety tech checks all the boxes. It’s a completely different direction than every other car manufacturer is taking, and I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.
Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
That’s if the current administration doesn’t destroy the EV market. ↩︎