Go Kart selfie
13
Uptown
25/52: Day One
This post was originally posted on December 10, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
The first day of many.
Each week for a year, I’m designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 25.
2017 wasn’t a great year for me, but I’ve got a bunch planned for 2018 and I’m really looking forward to the year ahead.
January 1, 2018 is the first day of the new year, but it’s also only one day. One day of 365. We pay special attention to New Year’s Day. We make resolutions and we celebrate the start of a new year — a clean slate. But we need to spend the rest of the year making good on those resolutions and living out those best intentions.
I also need a reminder that one day is only one day. Some days will be really awesome and exceptionally productive. And others will seem like a complete waste of time. But it’s only one day. I can’t get too high or too low. I need to trust the plan and keep working toward my goals.
Day One is my shirt for New Year’s Day, but also for the rest of the year. You can buy Day One on my Threadless store. And here’s to a great 2018.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
What a great night celebrating Liz’s birthday (a little early). Ending the evening by the fire pit.
Liz on the beach at night
24/52: Mountains and Oceans
This post was originally posted on December 3, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
You can love both.
Each week for a year, I’m designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 24.
When I started this project, one of the first shirts I sketched out was for my wife’s birthday. I liked the concept, but when I went to execute it… It was fine, but it didn’t look like Liz. So I worked on some other ideas and none of them seemed quite right. Liz has been one of the biggest cheerleaders for this shirt project and I really wanted her shirt to be perfect… it wasn’t.
I took Liz to Hilton Head* to celebrate her birthday and we went for a long walk on the beach. One of the many topics of discussion was our mutual love of both the ocean and the mountains. Liz grew up out west with amazing mountains, but never really went to the ocean. When she moved east, closer to the ocean, Liz discovered that she loved the ocean as much as she loved the mountains.**
I came back to our hotel room and sketched out what would become Liz’s birthday shirt, Mountains and Oceans. You can get Mountains and Oceans — and all the other shirt designs — at my Threadless store.
* Hilton Head in the winter is wonderful. I highly recommend it.
** Living in Columbia, SC, we are two hours from the coast and two hours from Asheville. For people like us who love both the mountains and the sea, being in Columbia is a perfect location.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Beach view
She’s a little big to climb the tree.
Students on green screen.
23/52: I’M OK
This post was originally posted on November 26, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
Really, I’m fine.
Each week for a year, I’m designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 23.
My son Ryan turned 6 this week. And as I mentioned when I designed Jill’s Team Rainbow Unicorn shirt, I let the kids help design the shirt on the week of their birthday.
We locked in very quickly on what the shirt would say. Whenever Ryan falls, stumbles or gets hurt, he immediate shouts “I’m okay!” He started this when he was very little — pretty much when he started to talk. Once, when he fell and smashed out a tooth at daycare, the first thing he said to me when I picked him up was “I’m okay!” Sometimes, he starts saying “I’m okay!” when he starts to fall, before he hits the ground. It’s become like a catchphrase for him.
But what the shirt looked like, though… that was challenging.
At first Ryan wanted something really complicated, with paper airplanes crashing and little stick figures and a speech bubble with “I’m okay.” But I wanted to do something a little cleaner. We went around and around with other ideas. After all the back and forth, we settled on just having “I’M OK” on the shirt. Bold and straightforward.*
Ryan’s shirt — “I’M OK” — is available in a range of colors on Threadless.
* One variation was a bold “I’M OK” all cracked up into pieces. And while it looked cool, and Ryan really liked it, it looked completely depressing, all shattered and broken. It really didn’t fit the message we wanted.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Blue sweetener? Pink sweetener?
We stopped by to see GiGi today. She’s doing great.
22/52: Secret Santa
This post was originally posted on November 19, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
I would tell you, but it’s claus-ified.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 22.
I’ve always loved the phrase “Secret Santa.” Of course, it’s intended to be an exchange of gifts where no one knows who is giving them gifts. I’ve done Secret Santa’s at the office and I’ve volunteered to be a Secret Santa for a local children’s shelter. I’ve always fun buying presents for others.
But I’ve always thought that phrase sounded more like a comic book. Santa delivers presents on Christmas, but the rest of the year, he uses his magic to solve crimes. Something of a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Columbo. Or like the old Disney Channel animated show, Kim Possible. Maybe Santa is a secret agent in the off season, with an entire team based out of the North Pole. More 007 than Sherlock Holmes.
Or maybe my Secret Santa comic would follow Mrs. Claus as she moves from town-to-town solving murders. Sort of like Murder She Wrote, but with magic. And candy canes.
I think the idea has potential. This week’s shirt features the logo for my imaginary comic book, Secret Santa. You can buy Secret Santa in a range of Christmas colors (plus black, because, secret agents don’t typically wear red or green.)
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.
Rainbow.
Sometimes you need to stop and photograph the roses.
21/52: First Tree
This post was originally posted on November 11, 2017 on Sketchbook B. It’s reposted here as part of a project to move some of my favorite writing to my new site.
A tree as big as our car.
Each week for a year, I’m going to be designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 21.
When my wife and I first got married, we lived in a little duplex in downtown Columbia. Christmas came and we needed to get a tree. I’d never had an artificial tree and was dead set against anything but a real tree.
We went to a little Christmas tree lot on Garners Ferry not too far from home and picked out the perfect tree. Perfect, except for the fact that we still had to get it home.
You see, we had two small cars, and this Christmas tree wasn’t fitting in either of them. The guy at the tree lot didn’t seem concerned. “Happens all the time.” So he broke out some twine and scissors and tied it to the roof of our Blue Ford Focus.
The sight was so ridiculous, that I drew a picture of it for our first Christmas card as a married couple. The tree tied onto the top of our Ford Focus was almost as big as the car. We got back to the duplex and discovered that the tree was too tall and it didn’t fit in the tree stand we had purchased. I had to go to the store to buy a saw to cut part of the bottom off.*
Once we got the tree up and decorated, it looked awesome. But the process… that was an adventure.
Eventually, I overcame my dislike of fake trees and now I don’t have to strap a tree to the top of my car, but Liz and I laugh about that first Christmas tree every year.
“Once we got the tree up and decorated, it looked awesome. But the process… that was an adventure.”
So for my first Christmas shirt for this year, I wanted to draw something that reminded me of our first Christmas together. I switched the car from a Blue Ford Focus — who wants a shirt with that car on it — to an old VW Rabbit. This was one of my first sketches that I completed when I started working on this project in the summer. I’ve been excited about this shirt idea for months.
Yesterday, I saw a similar shirt design floating around Facebook and I was kind of bummed that someone else had the same idea. But then I remembered the words of the attendant at the tree lot. “Happens all the time.” Most people probably do have a memory of strapping a too-big tree on top of a too-small car.
First Tree is available on my Threadless store.
Shirts make great Christmas gifts. And I’m offering a 20% off promotion on all my shirts through the end of 2017. It should save you a few bucks per shirt. And Threadless is offering free shipping on orders over $40 through December 15 – just use the code “CHEER10cc62.”
* Also, that’s the Christmas we learned that taking the tree to the recycling place after Christmas is much tougher than bringing it home.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, creative director, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create. He’s currently in the middle of a project to design a new shirt a week for an entire year.