Watching F1 with my daughter, who keeps surprising me with her race knowledge.
I took tomorrow off from work to have a “retreat” day. I’ll hole up in a coffee shop. Plan projects and grad school. Write. Maybe work on some typefaces. I try to do this twice a year, but I missed my regular January kickoff at the start of the year. I really need this day to get focused.
While I think most designers overreacted to the change in the Adobe Terms of Service update, I did go ahead and upgrade to the latest version of the Affinity Suite.
Here’s the other one I’m finishing up: SbB Directorate. Inspired by scifi bureaucracy and named after the government in Buck Rogers. Weight, width and slant axes.
I’ve been working on a couple of variable typeface designs lately. This one is SbB Departure Mono, based on a old Fontstruct design of mine. Two axes: Weight and Slant.
Working on a typeface design tonight and I’m really grateful for the comprehensive documentation available for Glyphs 3. Good user manuals are a lost art, and sometimes, you just need a reference guide to look something up.
Enjoyed the first two episodes of The Acolyte. Looking forward to seeing where the show goes…
Watching old episodes of Eureka tonight. Forgot how much I liked the show.
My wife’s car was totaled in a particularly horrific accident. (She’s fine) I’m still getting text and email updates on the car’s status… battery low, tires flat, etc. and it looks like the only way to stop them is to call OnStar… sigh.
School’s out and I don’t have to take my daughter to high school, so I’m the first person in the office today. Been a while since that’s happened, but I really do love getting into the office when it’s quiet.
I tried to help my wife with an issue on her work-issued PC laptop. I struggled so badly with the built in trackpad, that she pulled a mouse out of her bag for me to use. It was even worse than my kid’s school-issued Chromebooks. I am completely spoiled by Apple’s trackpad designs.
Pretty much the only reason we have an Alexa in our kitchen is for AnyList. It’s a shame that Amazon is going to make it harder to add items to our AnyList shopping list via Alexa.
A neighbor has built a custom motorcycle sidecar for his golden retriever. I’ve never seen a dog that happy.
I have yard work to do… so obviously, I’m reading up on how to customize the Tiny theme with microhooks.
Today, I was surprised to learn that my 16-year-old daughter is a secret F1 fan.
Just a reminder on Memorial Day that using the Stars and Stripes in advertising is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code.
15 years of Fontstruct
I realized this morning that I’ve been using Fontstruct for 15 years. Fontstruct is an online tool for building modular typefaces. My first typeface design — Big Thursday — debuted on May 26, 2009. Since then, I’ve publicly released 49 fonts on Fontstruct and 19 have been selected as “Staff Picks.”
The original version didn’t have a lot of flexibility,1 but over time developer Rob Meek has added new brick types, construction methods, kerning, support for color fonts and other features to Fontstruct to make it more powerful. My work tends to be a little brutalist, but if you want to understand the flexibility of the tool, check out the gallery to see what amazing creations people can craft with this online tool.
I don’t use the most complicated features, but I sometimes use Fontstruct to prototype an idea for a new typeface. One of Fontstruct’s best integrations is that I can download a file that I can open and refine in Glyphs.2 I recently created a design, moved it to Glyphs and built a variable font out of it.
Balancing work, family, grad school and other obligations, I don’t have a ton of time to spend in Fontstruct. But when they rolled out the Patron level of support for 5 euro a month, I subscribed immediately. I’m happy to support independent tools that are constantly improving.
I pulled together a sample of some of the designs I’ve created over the years on Fontstruct. Feel free to head over to my page and download anything you like. Or better yet, sign up for an account and start experimenting.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
A designer on Threads asked what tool he should use to build a simple portfolio site, and the answers were anything but simple… get-a-good-text-editor-and-build-it-yourself, Wordpress, Squarespace, Adobe Portfolio, a bunch of services I’ve never heard of…