Bob Wertz

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...

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...

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...

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....