My wife discovered the hidden yellow jacket nest burrowed in the ground when she steered the lawnmower directly over it. 12 stings later… she’s in a lot of pain. Plus Jilly got one sting rescuing her mom.
There is no better feeling than coming up with the perfect name for your typeface… and discovering it is actually unused.
Saw a double rainbow on my way back from picking up dinner.
Just watched Apple’s “haptic trailer” for the new F1 movie. Very cool effect. (You can find it in the Apple TV App on your phone.)
Thinking about Apple’s new Liquid Glass design… What if Apple used the camera on the back of the iPhone to create an AR passthrough effect like the Apple Vision Pro so it feels like you are looking through the phone? Your iPhone becomes just a sheet of “glass” with an interface overlay?
If you want to watch two of the best teams in baseball, Cubs v. Tigers is MLB.com’s free game of the day.
Switching my blog into summer mode. My fish logo is now the summer vacation version with sunglasses.
Google Scholar is blocking searches from my computer and phone if iCloud Private Relay is turned on, claiming that my “computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.”
Working in a Starbucks that’s just been renovated. It’s located at a major interstate interchange and was clearly designed to be primarily a drive thru location. Very small inside. The long bench is new, and probably a better use of space.
Dr. Annie Andrews is running for Senate in SC. She’s on Bluesky and someone knows what they are doing because her username is her domain name. 👍
Rewatching Arrow Season 1. So delightfully over the top. 📺
Everyone is excited about Apple renumbering the operating system version, but there are still ways they could mess with people:
macOS twentySIX
macOS XXVI
macOS Twenty6
macOS 20six
🤣
Sixteen years ago today, I shared my first Fontstruction… Big Thursday and it was selected as a Top Pick. Fontstruct has improved as a tool so much since those early days, but it’s still every bit as fun to play around with.
(Oh, and back then, the editor was built in Flash!)
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.
Beware hype without details
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.
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I was served a really strange OpenAI+Jony Ive ad on one of the streaming platforms. I skipped it. ↩︎
My Three Fontstruct Color Competition Entries
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 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.
SbB Lightbright
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.
SbB Perspectives
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.