This post was originally posted on January 13, 2019 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the language we use to talk about social media and content creation on the web. And as I’m writing about social media — especially microblogging and the indie web movement — I feel like we need a phrase to refer to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others that try to lock in users and leverage their private data to sell more ads, compared to the other newer services with revenue models that are less interested in ad sales or lock in.
I know that we already use “indie” and “indie web” as a way to differentiate between the two approaches, but I’m not sure that meaning is clear to a broader audience.
I’m going to go with “captive social” and “open social.”
Captive Social. Social media networks and services that make money through advertising, leveraging their user’s private data. Captive social networks benefit from gathering as much data on their users as possible and using that data to sell more relevant ads to users. To be profitable, that also means that they benefit from having users spend as much time as possible engaged with their platform. Examples of captive social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, Snapchat.
I think my time in the insurance industry has partially inspired this terminology. Captive insurance agents are contractually obligated to only sell products from a single vendor. But I think the term is appropriate for the relationships we have with social media platforms. We are locked into each service silo with very little interoperability between competing platforms.
Open Social. Newer social media networks that are aren’t interested in trapping your data. They benefit from interoperability and the sharing of data between services. Their profitability isn’t based on leveraging personal user data, but on the value you derive from the service.
The inspiration for the terminology isn’t open source, it’s open web standards. I was a Mac user during the years of Internet Explorer dominance — when you sometimes couldn’t access a web site if you didn’t have the right browser. The open web standards push in the early 2000’s freed us from that nightmare and led to expanded browser choice. I hope that open social can have a similar effect on social media that open web standards had on the web.
Open social does have a distinct meaning from indie web. Indie web aims to separate itself from the corporate web, but open social is not necessarily limited to only small companies and decentralized platforms. A large corporation could build an open social platform, as long as they weren’t profiting from trapping your data and locking you into their service.1 The difference isn’t the size of the provider, but instead, their goals, objectives and business models.
So here are a couple of examples of captive social and open social in context:
I don’t know why you spend so much time on those captive social sites.
I’m going to focus on open social platforms like Micro.Blog and limit the time I spend on captive social sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Hopefully, open social platforms will have the same impact on the web that the open web standards movement did.
It’s a subtle change — a language shift that I think will help when we are having discussions with people who are concerned about privacy and the power of social media, but who aren’t comfortable hosting their sites or maintaining a server.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
I recognize that the concept of an open social network from a large corporation might seem absurd in today’s environment, but you never know. ↩︎
Friday night, grad school. Classes start next week and I already have reading.
New glasses.
Many of the walking trails at Saluda Shoals are flooded.
Designers don’t want to admit it, but math is important to the profession.
This post was originally posted on September 29, 2015 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
My first class in graduate school was a quantitive research class and I really enjoyed the statistics side of things. As I’ve told my designer friends this, they typically respond with something along the lines of “Ugh. I became a designer so I wouldn’t have to do math.” I’m not surprised. I’ve heard the same from designers and students over the years, but I’m increasingly irritated by it for a few reasons:
Designers use math every day. I’m not sure where the myth that designers don’t need to understand math comes from, but it’s not true. I use math pretty much every day in my work. Especially geometry and algebra. Understanding foundational mathematical concepts makes you a better designer.
It steers talent away from the field. Let’s say you’ve got a talented high school kid, who also happens to be good at — or maybe even like — math. Tell them enough times that math isn’t important for designers and they’ll find a different career path. As an honors student, I was told repeatedly through school by well-meaning adults that I didn’t want to take art classes because they weren’t rigorous enough. As a result, I initially looked at options like architecture and engineering. It took me a while to circle around to design.
It undermines the profession. The reality is that designers struggle to be taken seriously by big business. We’ve fought to get a “seat at the table” and prove our value beyond just crafting the look and feel of something. As much as we don’t like it, the “language” of business is often based in math. Ignoring the importance of math simply makes it harder to communicate with business decision makers.
I think the challenge is separating our feelings about “math class” from our feelings about “math.” I didn’t enjoy most of my high school math classes. My algebra and geometry teachers weren’t my favorites. Because I scored a high enough score on my AP Calculus test, I was able to exempt all of my college math requirements, so I haven’t taken a math class in almost 25 years. What I’ve come to realize is that while I disliked the way I was taught math, math itself is pretty amazing. And useful.
Don’t misunderstand me… I’m not expecting designers to line up and take refresher math classes. AIGA chapters aren’t going to start holding day-long math workshops. All I’m saying is that embracing the idea that math is an integral part of design only helps the profession as a whole.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.
This post was originally posted on January 6, 2019 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Taking a look in the Facebook mirror.
I often look at people’s Facebook posts and ask “why?” Why did you post that status? Why did you share that meme? Why did you feel you should comment on that post that you disagreed with?
Does it make you feel better? Do you enjoy sharing something controversial and have some of your friends agree with you? Does that provide you validation of some sort?
Are you trying to anger those that disagree with you? Do you get some satisfaction from pissing off your “friends?”
Was this story critically important to share? Did you honestly read past the headline? Are you sure the story is even true?
Are you outraged? Why are you outraged? Because the news told you to be? Because the Russians told you to be? Do you know why you are outraged?
Seriously, where does it end?
Every interaction on Facebook — posts, comments and likes — is in your activity log. It’s easy to find. Just go to your profile and click on the “Activity Log” button in the top right of your profile page.
Just look at the last week. For each interaction, ask yourself “why?” Why did I share that comment? Why did I like that meme? Why did I share that link?
What value am I adding to discussion?
How am I making the world a better place?
Are my interactions with people positive and encouraging?
Am I sharing joy?
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see hate and angst? Because if so, you aren’t helping your cause. You aren’t helping society. And you aren’t helping yourself.
Now the hard part: Start asking “why” before you post? Understand the impact of your words before you comment. Or like. Or share. In all likelihood, this exercise will cause you will post less. Comment less. Like less. That’s okay. The only person who will get upset that you are using Facebook less is Mark Zuckerberg. (And honestly, he’s too busy trying to collect all your personal data to notice.)
Don’t get sucked into the negativity. Don’t get caught up in the outrage machine. Don’t let the trolls get to you. And I promise, your Facebook experience will get better and your personal outlook will get better, too.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, grad student, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He recently finished a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
This post was originally posted on January 6, 2019 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Getting through the gatekeeper.
When we create content for anything, a communicator considers the audience. Who is going to read this piece or watch this video? What are they hoping to get out of it? What do we want them to do?
When we create for online and social, we consider our target audiences. But there’s another audience we often overlook: the algorithm.
The algorithm isn’t a person, but it is an audience. The algorithm determines what our primary audience sees online and on social media. The role the algorithm plays is no different than an administrative assistant who’s sorting the mail — a gatekeeper — and we need to treat it the same way. Think about what the algorithm needs to see to get the message through to our intended target. List it as a secondary audience on our creative briefs. We need to understand how the algorithm “thinks” as much as we need to understand our primary target audience.
Because a message that is well-crafted for your primary target audience is wasted if they never see it.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, grad student, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He recently finished a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Pretty amazed the iPhone was able to pick up some of the star field. Orion’s Belt is there at the top of the frame.
This post was originally posted on December 29, 2018 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Don’t call them goals or resolutions.
Looking back, 2018 was great. Lots of challenging moments and disappointments, but so many great things happened. This year marked a change in emphasis for me. I made the decision to apply for graduate school in early January 2018 and started in August. And so for the last half of the year I was working full time and taking classes part time and teaching and parenting and… I’ve had to take a hard look at how I spend my time and prioritize.
I usually do some kind of annual planning and pull together a handful of specific things I want to achieve in the upcoming year, but for 2019, I’m going to try to do something different. I’m going to pick a couple of broad themes that I want to focus on for the year ahead.
These aren’t goals. There is nothing S.M.A.R.T. about them. And they aren’t New Year’s Resolutions, either. They are just topics to give me some focus of where I want to spend my time and creative energy this year.
Graduate School. I started working on my Masters last year, but 2019 will be much more intense. Being a graduate student is my primary focus in the upcoming year as I develop a research plan for my thesis.
Type Design. I love type design, but over the last few years, I haven’t focused on it much. In 2018, I did some contract type design work and really enjoyed it. I want to design more typefaces in 2019.
Python, Javascript or both. I’ve tinkered around with learning to program for years. For 2019, I want to expand my knowledge of Python and/or Javascript. Both languages are used with data visualization packages and I could see that being useful with my graduate program. As a bonus, Python is also used heavily in type design and would be helpful if I’m working with type more.
Writing. I want to write more. How much more? I don’t know. What do I want to write? I don’t know. But I do know that I enjoy writing and need to do it more often.
Social media. Last year, I started to change my relationship with social media. I’m learning that less is definitely more. This year, that will continue. Expect me to post significantly less on Facebook and Twitter and focus almost exclusively on Instagram and Micro.Blog.
So these are my professional themes. My creative priorities for the upcoming year. It doesn’t mean that I won’t do other things during the year — for example, I have some other t-shirt related ideas — but they’ll be one-off projects.
I’ve also got a couple of personal themes about family and health, too. These are mostly about balance. Maintaining enough quality time with the family and taking care of myself.
I’m looking forward to a fabulous 2019.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, grad student, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He recently finished a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Not my “Best Nine,” but my “Favorite Eight.” I usually do a best nine post at the end of the year, but this year I realized I’d rather post the images I loved instead of the ones that were most liked. #fav8 #bestnine2018
This post was originally posted on December 27, 2018 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Better than my “Best Nine.”
A couple of weeks ago, I generated my Instagram “Best Nine” as I’ve done the last few years. If you aren’t familiar with it, you go to a web site, put in your Instagram profile name and it generates a single image containing the nine images you took over the last year with the most likes. And you post it on Instagram as a retrospective from the year.
When I looked at my best nine image for this year, I noticed that while these may have been the images that got the most likes, they weren’t my favorites.
I had another idea. What if I went through my Instagram feed and just picked my favorites?
I started to go through Instagram to pick my favorite eight images from the past year. With “Best Nine,” you don’t have to put any thought into it. The algorithm selects the ones with the most likes. But with “Fav8,” this process takes some time. I posted 120 times over the last year and many of the posts had multiple images. I used Instagram’s bookmarks filter to keep track of my favorite shots. A first pass quickly got me to about 14 images, but getting down to 8 was really hard. I cut many of the artistic shots for the ones that meant more to me personally.
A quick summary of my Fav 8:
Our oldest had a fun first season playing JV Lacrosse this year.
We picked strawberries. The whole crew loves strawberries.
My wife tried pickle-flavored Pelican’s SnoBall. She did not like it.
We joined a pool and had a blast.
I went back to grad school.
We discovered that the whole crew loves hiking.
I finished my shirt project and had an art show at USC Upstate.
I’m a designer, so naturally, I fired up Photoshop. I’m sure that there is an easier way to do this, probably with some app on iOS, but I’m much faster on my Mac. I created a 1200 px x 1200 px Photoshop file and then scaled each of my favorite images to 400 px x 400 px and arranged them in a grid.
That left one block in the lower right. I was just going to put the year there, but I decided to build a quick little “Fav8” logo. It’s SbB Epyx, a Fontstruct design I created last year.
For a little bit of whimsy, the background color of that last square is the average color of my favorite eight images. Which leads us to a quick Photoshop tip. (Feel free to skip this next section if you aren’t a Photoshop user…) Getting the average color from your images is easy:
Edit > Select All
Edit > Copy Merged (If you are like me, your images are all on different layers.)
File > New… (It will automatically set the size to what’s on your clipboard)
Edit > Paste
Filter > Blur > Average (This will generate a solid color that is the average of all the color in your image. It will likely be some shade of gray.)
The take that color and make it the background of your final square.
Back from the random Photoshop tip and moving on to some social (media) commentary.
Instagram lets us share our images with friends (and strangers) across the world. That’s mostly awesome, but it also means that we know what those people think about our images. And I think we start crafting images to generate that positive feedback.
Something like “Best Nine” is fun. Take a look at the images that other people liked most. But I’d rather look pull together the images I liked most and relive those memories and moments. Sorting through my images to select my favorites was fun. It reminded me of some awesome moments during 2018 — some that I honestly had forgotten about.
My favorite eight were my favorites not because other people liked them, but because I loved the moment and the story behind the image. And that’s something an algorithm can’t know.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, grad student, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He recently finished a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Aftermath
Our traditional Team Wertz on-the-stairs-before-presents picture. Ruby decided to join this year. Merry Christmas.
