My theme for 2021

12/31/20 • 4 min read

This post was originally posted on January 1, 2021 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

The year after the year that lasted forever.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited for a calendar year to end. We’ll never forget 2020 as long as we live, but I’ll be glad to have it in the rearview mirror. Now that January is here, it’s time to talk about plans for 2021.

Normally, I would have taken a day or two off of work in early December and headed to a coffee shop to plan my next year. I’ve taken these “retreats” for the last four years and I find they really help me focus on what I want to get done. This year, because of the pandemic, there was no all-day coffee shop retreat and I just planned from home. And while I missed the structure of my retreat days, my process was basically the same as the last few years. I take a stack of index cards and write everything I want to do — one topic per card. Then I look for patterns and sort by priorities. Normally a plan emerges from the stacks of cards and I find 3-4 goals to focus on for the next year.

Looking through my cards, there were three major contexts that were obvious:

• School. I’ll finish my Master’s degree in the Spring when I finish my thesis and comps. I’ve got a couple of academic papers I need to revise and submit for publication. And I need to decide if I’m going to proceed with the Ph.D. program.
• Health. I’m committing to being healthier and 2021 is the year I’m going be more active and focus on taking care of myself — from fitness to meditation.
• Creativity. I’ve got a bunch of creative projects I want to tackle. From big projects like typefaces and novels to small projects like stickers and short stories. I need to make sure I find time to be creative and have fun with some new projects.

But there was a single, overarching theme that became apparent as I flipped through my cards. A topic that connected all of the other themes together: I need to focus on building an intentional schedule.

For me, everything I want to do starts with structure. I need to carve time out for writing my thesis. Set aside time to read for fun. Find time to work out. Make sure I have time to do meal planning and grocery shopping. Cook dinner in instead of getting takeout. I simply do better when I have a structure to my day. And during coronavirus, but schedule and daily rhythm has been destroyed.

Building a consistent intentional schedule in 2021 will be a challenge. I’m working from home for the Spring semester. My kids are on a hybrid schedule meaning that they attend school online some days, and I take them to school on others. And their schedules can change from week-to-week depending on the pandemic. Pretty much every day is different. When summer arrives, I assume I’ll be heading back to work five-days-a-week so I will have to get adjusted to commuting again. I have to plan for my schedule will need to adapt to my changing life.

So for 2021, in order to focus on school, health and creativity, my goal is build an intentional schedule that carves out a daily, weekly and monthly structures for the year. I’ve got some ideas about how I want to tackle this structure, but I know it will change and evolve during the year. I’ll share what works (and what doesn’t) here on Sketchbook B over the year.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. And he wears a mask to protect his community.

Looking back at my goals for 2020

12/30/20 • 4 min read

This post was originally posted on December 31, 2020 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

Surprisingly not a disaster.

It’s time to look back at how I did with my 2020 themes. In general, with the pandemic, the election craziness and everything else that’s happened this year, I feel like I need to give myself a pass. But honestly, I’ve done okay with my themes. And looking to 2021, I see some specific things I need to work on.

My four identity statements/themes for 2020 were:

• I am a graduate student.
• I am a healthy person.
• I am a typeface designer.
• I am a reader.

I had planned to finish my Master’s degree in 2020, but because of the pandemic, I decided to extend my program by a semester. My classwork is done and all I have to do is finish my thesis.

The pandemic completely sidetracked my efforts to be healthier. I was making good progress in March when everything shut down. And then the combination of stress and an inconsistent schedule pretty much obliterated any hope of being healthier in 2020.

I did actually make a significant progress with typeface designs. I massively overhauled one of my older typefaces to release SbB Powertrain. And I’ve completed three other typefaces that I will be releasing at some point soon. One unanticipated side effect of focusing on type design is that it caused me to also rework my website and rethink some marketing and distribution strategies.

I read a bunch this year for grad school, but not as much for fun. The library closed due to the pandemic, which limited my supply of books. But honestly, I found it really hard to settle into a book this year. I’m not sure if it was the pandemic or just stress, but at the end of the day, I just didn’t have the energy to read. And the stuff I did try and read, I just didn’t stick with.

I’m actually proud of my 2020. I made progress towards my degree and I released some typefaces. I read some, but not as much as I wanted to. But I failed completely at being healthier.

Looking forward at 2021, I recognize a couple of things I have to work on. I felt like the year started strong — even during the early days of the pandemic — but when September hit, the wheels fell off. I was working, taking a class and teaching a class all from the same desk in our bedroom. My wife was trying to figure out how to be a virtual kindergarten teacher and my kids were adapting to the new school year with a hybrid schedule. Any semblance of a schedule disappeared. The result was simply overwhelming. For 2021, I need to figure out how to maintain a schedule and structure to find time for the things I need to do.

Around the same time as we returned to school, the election coverage ramped up. I’m a news junkie, but I’d done a really good job of avoiding social media. That fell apart in October, when I started to pay more attention to Twitter and even look at Facebook on occasion. I thought for sure that things would calm down after Biden was elected, but the Trump chaos train continues. I’ve written on this blog about finding a balance with social media. As 2020 ends, it’s time for me to reevaluate that relationship.

I’ve never been happier to flip over to a new calendar year. I’ve been working on my planning process for 2021 since early December and will post about that tomorrow. But considering all that’s happened over the last year, I’m calling my 2020 a success.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. And he wears a mask to protect his community.

2020 Fav8

12/30/20 • 2 min read

This post was originally posted on December 31, 2020 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.

My best shots from an historically bad year.

Each year, I post my eight favorite shots from the previous year. And even in a year as strange as 2020, I still have some great shots. I started the year studying in coffee shops and ended it working from home and wearing a mask everywhere I go.

1. Late evening studying in a Starbucks before the pandemic. I miss studying in coffee shops.
2. Norah’s last Chapin JV Lacrosse game before the season was shut down. They won 19-0.
3. Family selfie on a walk in the park behind our house. Back when we foolishly thought we’d be home for two or three weeks, max.
4. We ordered masks for the whole family from our friend Sally.
5. Met this little guy on walk.
6. Kayaking at Hilton Head.
7. The cats enjoyed having me work from home most of the year.
8. We voted in the most important election of my life.

I’ve written in the past about my Fav8 process and you can check out my Fav8’s from 2018 and 2019.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. And he wears a mask to protect his community.