SbB Fonts: My new two-color type design site hosted on Micro.Blog
I decided a while back that I wanted to separate my typeface designs onto their own site. They’ve always lived alongside my blog and other creative projects, but they needed a home of their own, especially since I plan to expand the offerings in the near future. I’ve been noodling around with options, but today, I’m finally ready to release SbBFonts.com out into the world with a design inspired by two-color printing.
The Inspiration
When I became a designer in the mid-1990s, the web was just becoming a thing, and printed documents were the primary job of a designer. Two-color projects used only two spot ink colors — say green and black — for the entire job. (You also had a “third” color with the paper, which was usually just white.) Four-color printing or full-color printing was reserved for only the most important pieces with the largest budgets. For young designers in a pre-web world, two-color work paid the bills. Two-color printing presented challenges, but the process had a particular look. Designers who knew what they were doing could use duotones for images or print on colored paper to get a different look.
Two-color printing isn’t dead. Screen printing and letterpress still use spot colors, but full color printing has gotten cheaper and as a society, we don’t print nearly as many marketing materials as we used to. The craft of designing has moved past the lowly two-color press run.
I guess that’s why when I started to design a home for my typeface designs, I knew I wanted the site to resemble a two-color print job. Much of the inspiration for my type designs comes from my nostalgia for old tech. Two-color printing seemed like the perfect inspiration.
The Execution
The first question was what two “ink” colors to use? Since I wanted to use a dark background, I chose white and the bright green since I use that color for all of my Sketchbook B projects. I picked two dark greens to be backgrounds — essentially a dark mode and a darker mode.1 Accommodating the two background colors meant that I also needed to use transparency on all of my example graphics, including my fake “duotones” and my animated GIFs. You can see the example below of one of the images I used placed over white, dark green and darker green backgrounds. I’m happy with the result, even if there are far easier ways to accomplish this look.2
This site is hosted as a “single page” on Micro.Blog. This might be the worst named feature on Micro.Blog since you can absolutely have more than one page. It’s simply a static Hugo site that doesn’t include a blog. I built everything on the Tiny theme by Matt Langford — the same version that I use for bobwertz.com. This feature is included in my Micro.Blog subscription, so my additional cost is essentially nothing.3
To get the look I wanted, I had to write a bunch of HTML and CSS. My old site was on Squarespace, so it has been a while since I worked so closely with markup. I spent a good bit of time digging through reference guides to make sure I was doing everything correctly. But honestly, if you look under the hood, it’s probably a mess. Just a warning.4
I still have a little refinement left, but I’m happy with where the site is. I need to finish proofreading and rework some of the copy. I’m thinking about future development… I’ve got a plan on how to change the home page when I add a few more typefaces. Right now, I think the five fonts currently presented in this way is about the maximum.
Head over to SbB Fonts and let me know what you think.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
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The print designer in me would like to acknowledge that I’d likely need to use two hits of white on dark paper to get this effect. Meaning that it would likely need to be a three-color job. I’m ignoring that inconvenient truth. ↩︎
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Or, you know, not having a “light mode” version… ↩︎
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I did choose to buy a domain name. ↩︎
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The last time I built a site by hand, tables were an acceptable construction method. ↩︎
Can we stop for a second and appreciate that “Wookiepedia” is the best named web site on the Internet?
Watched the Austrian Grand Prix. Quite a race. Feel bad for Norris.
I love pixel fonts, so I was absolutely delighted with this presentation from Marcin Wichary. Enjoy!
After watching a particularly violent episode of The Acolyte, my son turned on Bluey for a much needed change of pace.
Saw a bald eagle circling over our neighborhood today. Pretty uncommon sight in Columbia, South Carolina.
I noticed today that I’m listening to fewer tech podcasts. I think I’m just tired of everyone’s hot takes on artificial intelligence, intellectual property, regulation, spacial computing, the DMA… I just don’t feel like listening to them any more.
I’m completely procrastinating right now. Need to get in gear and finish up a couple of things this afternoon.
That’s an interesting place to end the episode.
Excited to see the plan to finish the Three Rivers Greenway. They’ve been working on it for over 20 years, slowly adding sections as they get approvals and funding. Once all these trails are complete, I’ll be able to ride a bike from the park in my backyard all the way to downtown Columbia.
I had to have a conversation with my 12-year son that parts of Star Wars fandom is toxic. And that some people who complain about Star Wars are motivated by their opinions on race, gender or politics.
Voted in the SC primary on the way into work today. In and out in less than 5 minutes. Remember that your vote counts — especially during primaries where the turnout is low. Support good candidates now so they will be on the ballot in November.
I watched most of Apple’s WWDC Keynote today. Still not particularly interested in the AI features, but there were plenty of other features I’m looking forward to using.
Our SC state representative is texting about how he’s “fighting liberals to secure the border.” Which border is he talking about? Our border with North Carolina or Georgia? Because pretty sure the SC state government isn’t responsible for any other borders.
Suicide is often ignored in the gun control debate. The NY Times has a heart-wrenching story about a woman trying to change perceptions in Montana:
Murder rates and mass shootings make national headlines, defining the discussion over pervasive gun violence. But most gun deaths in America are self-inflicted.
Woke up to the noise of a couple of chatty Barred Owls outside our bedroom window. 🦉
Fireflies are out in force in our backyard.
I’ve never really watched any car racing, but out of nowhere, my 16-year-old became interested in F1. Just watched the Canadian Grand Prix and you know what? I get the hype. That was fun.
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…