The Cycle

The trilogy is the classic model for releasing science fiction, fantasy and comic adaptations. Successful trilogies include Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, The Matrix, Twilight, The Hunger Games and many more.

But in today's media environment, a predefined trilogy leaves money on the table when a fan base will support more than just three movies or books. 

A creator can start with a larger pre-planned arch. JK Rowling planned 7 books for the Harry Potter series, which somehow became 8 movies. But that still leaves a preset end to the series that is very difficult to expand beyond.

Recently, the plan seems to be what I'm calling the "cycle." A series of movies featuring individual characters, culminating in an ensemble movie. Then the cycle starts again.

Look at the current set up of the Avengers films:

The same structure appears to be at work with DC Comic's rumored Justice League series. And now as part of the Disney Star Wars acquisition, there will be stand-alone movies featuring individual characters along with the new trilogy.

From a business standpoint, it makes sense. The cycle can continue as long as there are enough fans to support it. Movies can come out more frequently to keep fans connected to the series. And with no predefined end to the series, the studios can maximize their profits.

Creatively, writers can do more character development in the individual movies. Which in turn makes the ensemble movies that much more powerful. With The Avengers cycle, Joss Whedon serves as a creative consultant for all the films maintaining a degree of continuity.

I'd expect to see other franchises try to adopt this format. And it will be interesting to see how successful the Marvel, DC and Star Wars cycles will be in the long term.

Useful Legal Documents for Designers

I saw a link to these Useful Legal Documents for Designers on Twitter the other night from AIGA Raleigh. My students are always asking about contracts and business practices. This site has compiled some nice sample agreements, available to be downloaded for free.

These can be great a starting point and help you figure out what needs to be covered in a contract. But I recommend that you work with a lawyer to customize it to fit your needs. Laws vary from state to state. And your unique situation may require a different agreement.

Mom, Michael Bierut and Advice on Criticism

Mom and me in August 1976. Yes, that's me with the crazy curls.

I was about to graduate from college and was at home telling my Mom about my decision to be a designer. For most of my college career, my major had been journalism or public relations. But near the end of my college career, I fell in love with design and changed my major. Mom was normally the most supportive person in the world, but that day, she was skeptical. "Bob, you don't exactly handle criticism well."

I thought about Mom when I read Michael Bierut's essay Graphic Design Criticism as a Spectator Sport on Design Observer earlier this week. (If you have not read the essay, do yourself a favor and read it now.)

Michael Bierut came to speak at an AIGA South Carolina event several years back. I remember him talking honestly about the challenges of pitching work to clients. It was the first time I could remember a "rock star" designer expressing that sometimes, you are limited by a client.

It resonated with me. As designers, I think we often fall into the trap of thinking that our solution is perfect and flawless and that the client should just trust us. But it doesn't always happen that way, even for famous designers.

Michael talks in his essay about how Pentagram spent over two years on redesigning UPS. And they never could convince them that their solution was the right one. Several years later, Futurebrand won the redesign, but their solution was widely criticized.

His point in telling the story is that he understood Futurebrand's challenges with the UPS redesign. But I took something else from it: No matter how large and well-respected you and your firm are, you still have to convince a client that your solution is right for them. Sometimes, you will fail.

I have students and friends that absolutely explode with frustration when their work is criticized. Or when clients ask for significant changes. But this is part of the job and part of the environment that we live in today. This is part of the career we have chosen. We have to deal with the criticism as constructively as possible and move on.

Futurebrand released a redesign of American Airlines last week, replacing the iconic Massimo Vignelli mark. Personally, I love the redesign. (And I love the original.) Commentary from designers seems to be split and there are many who are harshly criticizing it. Even Massimo Vignelli. It doesn't matter who you are, you can't please everyone.

My mom was very astute to realize that if I was going to be successful as a designer, I needed to understand that criticism is part of the job. I've worked really hard to deal with criticism in a positive way and to encourage others to do the same.

My oldest daughter is very creative and interested in design or art as a career when she grows up. I've thought about what advice I'll give her about criticism if that's the route she takes. I've settled on this:

You are a designer.
Criticism is part of the job. Accept it.
You will not always win. That's okay.
If there's a better solution, find it.
Stay focused. Keep creating.
Love what you do.

Litho Stones

After my dad retired, he got into antiques. Knowing my love for type, design and printing, he's always on the look out for something unique. Over the years, he's found a bunch of great wood and metal type, type drawers and other printing materials.

A 100-year-old litho stone. The logo for Carlisle and Co., a San Francisco printer. Note the name of the company in the feathers.

Before Christmas, he sent me an email that he had purchased my Christmas present, but wasn't sure exactly what it was. The auction listed the lot as "printing stones" and no one really knew anything about them. He had one for me, but to get it, he had to buy the entire lot. 11 stones in all.

I knew immediately that he had litho stones. But I wasn't prepared for how remarkable they were. (If you don't know about stone lithography, here's some background.) 

Each block is limestone and about 10 x 12 inches and about 2.5 inches deep. They weigh around 30 lbs. each. They are marked on the side with a red identification number. 

My Christmas present had a large Native American illustration on one side and stock certificates on the other side. 

A side view of one of the stones with a reference number.

Two litho stones, side one.

Two litho stones, side two.

I didn't see it at first, but the feathers of the head dress spell the name "Carlisle and Co." A quick Google search and I was able to find A. Carlisle and Co., a printer still in operation and currently located in Reno. Thanks to a corporate history published on their 100th anniversary in 1953, I was able to find out a lot about the company, the Indian and the stones.

• The "Carlisle Indian" was drawn by the wife of the founder, Eleanor Majors. Interestingly, her father was one of the co-founders of the Pony Express.
• Carlisle (and several companies that they acquired over the years) were located in San Francisco for over 100 years.
• Carlisle was a top producer of government and corporate printed materials. Most of the stones are letterhead and stock certificates. Some of the stones are in Chinese. 
• The company building was destroyed in the Fire of 1906, but the company found a new location afterwards.
• Carlisle purchased lithographers Britton and Rey in 1917.
• Based on the dates on these stones, they look like the art is from the early 1920s. Some of the stock certificates are dated from even earlier.
• Several different designs are on each stone. Both sides of the stone are used.
• I have no idea how these stones made it from San Francisco to an auction in South Carolina. I'm assuming at some point they were given to an employee who then moved east.
• The "Carlisle Indian" is actually on the A. Carlisle and Company web site today. 

The corporate history, A. Carlisle and Company: The First Hundred Years is an amazing look at the history of printing, detailing the process with lots of photos of old equipment. It's been scanned and made available through the University of California. If you are interested in printing or design, check it out.

I'm going to try to research the other stones. I've actually only seen 2 of the 11 stones. They are an interesting snapshot of the growth of industry in California at the turn of the century. I'll post pictures and background on them here as soon as I can catalog them all.

Switching to Squarespace 6

I've had Sketchbook B with Squarespace since 2008. Over time, the service has improved and expanded -- adding and improving services continually. With the rollout of version 6, Squarespace unleashed a completely new system radically different than version 5. 

At first, I wasn't in love with version 6. Yes, it was pretty and powerful, but I found it too difficult to modify the standard templates and it was too much of a departure from version 5. I kept Sketchbook B on Squarespace 5.

But over time, new templates were added and I started to see the benefits of switching to version 6. I decided to move the site over.

Editing this post.

The new Sketchbook B site is based on Squarespace's "Five" template. I'm planning on adding a different header picture for each page and make some other adjustments, but I'm happy with how it looks. And I wanted to go ahead and flip the switch to Squarespace 6.

A couple of notes about Squarespace 6:

Easy import. Importing my older site was simple. Squarespace allows you to import a version 5 site and even keeps the URLs the same. My portfolio page didn't convert well, but I didn't have to completely start over. I did choose to rebuild some sections of my site to take advantage of some Squarespace 6 features.

Squarespace 6 also lets you import Wordpress, Tumblr and more. I can't vouch for how good those imports are, though.

Social. Squarespace 6 has great integration with social channels like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and more.

Responsive. The site looks good on a computer, tablet or smartphone with no additional modification required.

Powerful. Squarespace 6 is powerful without being overly complicated. I wouldn't go so far as to call it intuitive though. It took me a little while to figure things out. But once I did, I was impressed with what the platform could do. And Squarespace offers great help and tutorials.

The interface for making changes to the navigation, adding blog posts, gallery items, etc.

Worth the money. Squarespace isn't free. I have lots of people ask why I pay for Squarespace when I could get other solutions for free. But Squarespace gives me the power and flexibility I need at a reasonable cost of either $10 or $20 per month depending on your plan. If I was just blogging, maybe a solution like Tumblr or Wordpress might work. (In fact, Wanted in Columbia and Music Recycled are hosted with Tumblr.) But with the blog, font downloads and portfolio, Squarespace is a perfect solution for me.

Mobile Apps. Squarespace has a great mobile app for updating your site. But they also recently added a Note app that allows you to quick post to Squarespace and a bunch of other services. And they offer a portfolio app that takes your galleries and makes them a mobile portfolio on your iPhone or iPad.

Rough Edges. There are some rough edges. I've had some minor issues. Most of my issues are part of the learning curve for a new system. However, I watched Squarespace continually improve version 4 and 5 and I know they will continue to polish and improve version 6. 

The problem with setting goals...

Before you start setting a bunch of New Year's Resolutions or looking at business goals for 2013, read this great article by Peter Bregman on the Havard Business Review about the problems with setting goals:

It's not that goals, by their nature, are bad. It's just that they come with a number of side effects that suggest you may be better off without them.

Getting organized for 2013

I’m always looking for ways to be more organized. I recently cancelled my 37 Signals Backpack account. I liked Backpack and used it for many years, but recently they have decided to stop development on the product and I just haven’t been using it enough to continue paying for the service. And Basecamp — even though I love it — is overkill for my personal needs right now.

When I started using Backpack, I used it for to-do lists, to transfer files between the office and home, making notes and keeping track of bookmarks. Over time, other services took over features I had originally used in Backpack.

Dropbox took over the file transfers. I love Dropbox and couldn’t imagine my workflow without it. So elegant and effortless. I have gotten by with the free version, but really should upgrade to the paid version simply because I love the service so much. If you don’t have a Dropbox account, you are completely missing out.

There are lots of good task management apps on the market, but I needed something that would sync easily between my office Mac, laptop, iPhone and iPad. Flow is an online app with a companion iOS app and has become my go to for keeping track of projects and to-do lists. At $10 a month, it’s not cheap but is well worth the investment.

I started using Google Reader to organize all the RSS feeds for blogs and sites that I read regularly. I’m not fond of the Google Reader web interface so I use Reeder for Mac and iOS for reading articles.

I still needed to find a service for keeping track of bookmarks and notes. I’ve tried lots of services over the past year and I eventually settled on Evernote.

Screenshot of Evernote for the Mac

I first tried Evernote several years ago. And I didn’t like it. But recently, I gave it another shot and this time, it worked for what I needed.

Evernote is a web app that allows you to save notes and websites, organizing them into Notebooks. They have native apps for iOS, Mac and pretty much every other platform. Plus extensions for browsers that allow you to easily add pages to your Evernote account.

For websites, I just use the web clipper extension. And Reeder has the ability to send any story I read in the RSS feed straight to Evernote.

I often want to save tweets with links or photos. Most Twitter clients give you the option to email tweets so I email them to my dedicated Evernote email address. (You can easily add it to your contacts on the iOS and Mac versions.) I actually end up doing this quite a bit when I’m on my iPhone.

I set up an “Inbox” Notebook that I throw everything in. And then sort the notes into appropriate categories when I get a chance. Kind of like Inbox Zero.

I’m just starting to look at other ways to get notes and comments into Evernote. Evernote offers an app called Skitch that lets you add pictures and comments to your Evernote account. Squarespace’s new Note app lets you add notes straight to Evernote (plus Squarespace, Dropbox, Twitter and Facebook). Moleskine even sells an Evernote edition that you can use to catalog your sketchbook creations and even use labels to tag content.

Evernote has a section of the site called The Trunk dedicated to apps and solutions that work with Evernote. There are quite a few interesting solutions out there.

I haven’t upgraded to the Premium service yet ($5 per month or $45 per year). Most of what’s included is more than I need, but Notebook sharing is interesting to me. I could see sharing home ideas with my Pinterest-obsessed wife or project notes with other creatives.

Three new Flare presets

I've added three new Flare presets. If you haven't purchased Flare by the Iconfactory, you are missing out. Great app for adding custom effects and filters to photos. You can buy it in the app store (Through January 2, it's only $4.99 in the App Store.)

Hanger preset

Warehouse preset

Warning preset

Return of the camera store

Sometime over the last few months, the last dedicated camera store in Columbia closed. I’m not sure when the Ritz Camera on Beltline closed, but it is no longer there.

Camera stores have been closing for a long time. My favorite local camera store was Columbia Photo on Devine Street, where I purchased my first new camera. It closed years ago. I remember there being several Ritz and Wolf stores all over Columbia. But one by one, they’ve closed. A combination of the pressures of online retailers, big box retailers and the eradication of the film processing market.

The mythical EOS M, which I would love to try out if I could find one.

The reason I bring this up is that I needed a camera store this week. It’s time for me to upgrade my older - but still functional - Digital Rebel. I want to take a look at the new EOS M and compare it to a Canon EOS T4i. I can order it online, but the new, smaller mirrorless design makes me nervous. Online reviews say it might focus a little slow and it might be too small for liking. Before I make a decision, I want to hold the camera in my hands and talk to knowledgable salespersons.

No one in Columbia has the EOS M. (I’m starting to think that “M” stands for “mythical.”) And while the selection of cameras in the big box retailers is okay, they often don’t have the latest models. Sometimes the demo units don’t have batteries. Or the anti-theft devices are so large, you can’t get a feel for how the camera actually feels when you hold it. The sales people have very little info or training on the cameras. Buying a camera is a terrible experience.

This isn’t unique to Canon. This is for every camera on the market. I’ve wanted to look at Nikon and Olympus cameras before and had the exact same experience.

This feels familiar…

It honestly reminds me of Apple’s situation before they started opening the Apple Stores. I remember going in to Circuit City or Best Buy and half of the Macs weren’t working. The sales people couldn’t explain anything about the Macs. The retail purchasing experience was terrible at a time when going online to purchase your computer was getting easier.

Apple rolled out the Apple Stores and created the best environment to experience their products. An environment where they could teach people about computers. Sell accessories. Provide service. The improvement in the retail experience was not just limited to the Apple-owned stores. Best Buy and Apple partnered on developing a “Store-Within-A-Store” concept. Slowly, the purchasing experience at other outlets got better, too.

The Canon Store

In my opinion, Canon (or Nikon) needs to follow in Apple’s footsteps. Nice cameras are a significant investment. The interest in photography seems to be surging. And a company-owned store helps you build loyalty to your brand. I think a Canon retail store would be a destination shop at a mall if done correctly.

I could imagine a store in a high traffic area. A selection of cameras available for people to try out from simple point and shoot cameras to high-end DSLRs. Video equipment. A nice range of accessories like lenses, flashes and printers.

Trained sales people can show off your products and connect customers with the right product for them. Add a classroom area in the back where people can learn how to get the most out of their purchases. Service and support. Design anti-theft devices that don’t hinder the operation of the camera. And make sure the batteries are charged.

How many entry level users ever buy a new lens for their interchangeable lens camera? Or an external flash? A quality photo printer? A Canon store could help users see the advantages of adding to their system.

I don’t think a camera store like this should fall into the trap of also trying to do prints or enlargement. Leave that business to Shutterfly and the big box stores like Walmart. Focus on the cameras and the experience of the user.

The big risk

It would be a big risk, just like the Apple Store was. Most pundits thought the Apple Stores would be a complete failure. A chain of retail stores is a sigficant investment.

But if done correctly, it could pay off massively and develop a new generation of loyal customers. The more lenses and accessories they have that work with your system, the less likely they are to switch to another brand with their next purchase. And a retail store gives you the ability to interact with those customers and build deep and long-lasting relationships.

Introducing two new Sketchbook B blogs

I’ve started two Tumblr blogs over the last few weeks and wanted to post a couple of quick comments about them.

Wanted in Columbia

I love Columbia, South Carolina. But you’ll hear more than a few grumbles from Columbia residents about the stores and restaurants that we still don’t have — especially compared to other cities in the state.

So I’ve started Wanted in Columbia as a sort of grassroots effort to recruit retail stores, restaurants and other businesses to Columbia. The hope is that we’ll be able to leverage this city’s rather extensive social media community to let these companies know we’d love to have them be part of our community.

The plan is to post about once a week and maintain a “Most Wanted” list. (Hint: Apple Store is number one.)

Follow @wantedcolumbia on Twitter and like Wanted in Columbia on Facebook.

Music Recycled

I had the idea for Music Recycled several years ago. Got the domain name and promptly did nothing with it.

I love cover songs. I’ve always found it fascinating how artists can take someone else’s creation and make it their own.

My original plan was to link to songs in the iTunes Store. But I was never happy with how the posts were structured. When I was starting up Music Recycled, I discovered Tumblr’s new Spotify integration. It’s really slick and makes the process of posting these links really easy. The only downside is you must have the free app on your computer (or phone) to listen to the song.

Visit Music Recycled and follow @music_recycled on Twitter.

Sketchbook B

Sketchbook B has morphed from just being a blog and now includes fonts, Flare presets, two additional blogs and other projects.

I’m rebuilding the site in Squarespace 6. It’s taking a little longer to get it up and running than I had originally hoped. It’s basically like starting over. But it will be completely worth it. Once I get the new site up, I’ll start posting more frequently.

Building Blocks

Laser cut InShow logo

AIGA South Carolina’s InShow design awards were held last weekend. The award is always a cube — constructed from a different material every year.

I’ve been involved in the design and assembly of cubes in the past, designing the junction box cube in 2008 and helping with the pillow cubes last year. So I was really excited to design this year’s InShow cubes.

Maria Fabrizo was creating the supporting materials and was taking a rustic approach. Over the years, I’ve created a small collection of rejected cube prototypes. One prototype that I had experimented with previously was a wood block, made from a 6x6 timber cut into cubes. It seemed like a perfect fit for the theme.

I looked at a couple of different ways to add the logo and winner’s information to the blocks and settled on a plan to fabricate face plates and bolt them onto the solid blocks of wood.

The face plate — laser cut and engraved.

I used Ponoko to laser cut and engrave the face plates, cutting the InShow logo into a sheet of bamboo plywood. And the cutting and engraving were done at one time so personalization was really easy.

Ponoko is a really interesting service — just upload an EPS file and they cut your design into a material of your choice. And they provided great service and support. (I’ve used Ponoko before. See my 2009 blog post about building a book shelf with their service.)

Once we got the face plates, we just had to screw them onto the cubes. Brynley Farr from ByFarr Design was able to get some awesome remnant wood from Southland Log Homes and had it cut into cubes. In all, we assembled almost 70 cubes.

The face plates were screwed onto a solid block of wood. Check out the awesome wood grain on the side.

On the best of show and the special judges awards, the background of the InShow logos were painted — red for best of show and gold for the special judges award. (Check out this blog post from Fuzzco who won 10 cubes including best of show.)

Powerlane Specimen Book on MagCloud

I knew I wanted to create a specimen book for my new typeface, Powerlane. But I didn’t need that many copies. I decided to use MagCloud for production and was able to get a limited quantity for promotional use.

If you aren’t familiar with them, MagCloud is a company does on demand printing and publishing. They’ve recently increased their product line to include some larger format publications, posters, fliers and more. And you can use their platform to offer your publications or products for sale.

Build your PDF to their specs, upload it, proof it and you are done. Very easy. You can choose whether or not you want to make it available for public purchase. I ordered an handful of mine and was very happy with the quality.

(I will bring up the one really minor blemish — a tiny little bar code they stick on the back. It’s not a big issue and it is tiny, but if you are a perfectionist, it’s a little irritating. Most folks aren’t going to have an issue with it. But in case you were wondering, there is no way to get rid of it.)

I’ve made my Powerlane Specimen Book available for purchase at MagCloud. And you can choose to offer digital versions as PDFs or access it through the MagCloud iPad app. (The digital version of the Powerlane Specimen Book is completely free.) So go check it out.

And don’t forget that through October 23, Powerlane Complete is available for $59 ($140 off normal price) at MyFonts.com.

Thanks!

Powerlane is now released and while I’m still working on marketing and promotion, I really want to take a second and thank a lot of people that inspired me and helped me along with Powerlane.

My Wife

When I sat down to do the interview with The State, one of the first questions Cassie asked was something along the lines of “You have a full time job, you teach, you have three kids and you design type in your spare time. How does your wife feel about all of this?” I chuckled and simply responded that my wife is awesome.

My wife, Liz, is an artist, too. And a teacher. She understands why I want to design my own type. And why I couldn’t say no to the opportunity to work with a great group of students this semester.

Is it crazy? Sometimes, yes. We have to work really hard to coordinate schedules and find time for everything. But we do. Sometimes, I’m up really, really late. But without the support from Liz, I couldn’t accomplish any of this.

Marius Valdes

Marius and I get try to get together for lunch semi-regularly to brainstorm and bounce ideas off of each other. It’s always inspirational to sit down for a little while and throw ideas around.

I love working on projects with Marius. A while back, I created a custom variation of one of my typefaces for his Secret Species project. Power Grid, was upper case only and he needed a lower case. So I cranked out a version for him to use. I intended to polish it later, but never got around to it.

Fast forward to this year, when Marius and his awesome Secret Species project was featured in HOW magazine. As a type designer, it’s energizing to see your typefaces in use. After seeing Power Grid on the pages of HOW, I started working on it again. The result is Powerlane.

AIGA South Carolina

I owe a lot to AIGA South Carolina. It’s the chapter I helped start 7 years ago and it’s been a major influence on my career. Over the last few years, I’ve had the joy of seeing and interacting with creatives like Alex Isley, Michael Bierut, Jill Bell, Seymour Chwast, Chip Kidd, James Victore, Chris Bilheimer, Sean Adams, Stefan Sagmeister and more.

But in Spring of this year, AIGA SC brought in designer/illustrator Jude Landry and then a couple weeks later, designer/all-around-awesome-guy Aaron Draplin. And the combination was exactly the inspiration I needed. They are both amazing creatives with an entrepreneurial streak. And listening to them got me completely motivated to tackle the typeface and make it available commercially. And then a few months later, Rich Roat from House Industries came in to speak about all of their typographic successes.

It was the perfect line up of speakers for me at the perfect time.

Fontstruct and the Fonstruct Community

Sometime in 2009, I was home — sick in bed. Having given up on awful daytime TV, I was surfing the internet and stumbled upon Fontstruct and started experimenting. Powerlane started life as Power Grid, a Fontstruction. It was one of my early modular constructions, but I was very happy with it. But the modular structure made it difficult to expand Power Grid into the family I had in my head and I eventually chose to start from scratch.

But Fontstruct’s influence goes far beyond prototyping. The community at Fontstruct was encouraging and inspirational. They gave solid feedback on character designs. They kept me motivated when I was discouraged and challenged me to improve my designs.

I’ve gotten so busy lately, I haven’t been able to get back over to Fontstruct. But maybe I should enter the new stencil contest…

Glyphs

Finally, thanks to Georg Seifert for developing an awesome type design tool in Glyphs. It’s powerful and easy to use.

Recently, they’ve started blogging about how to get the most out of Glyphs. And many of their tips and tricks were very helpful in building Powerlane.

Don’t forget that through October 23, Powerlane Complete is available for $59 ($140 off normal price) at MyFonts.com.

Powerlane Available

So Powerlane is officially available through MyFonts.com. I’m very excited. I’m working on a bunch of posts about Powerlane, but for now, a few things you should know:

1. Until October 23, Powerlane Complete — all 20 fonts — are available for $59. That’s $140 off normal price. You can purchase Powerlane exclusively at MyFonts.
2. Powerlane (and I) were featured in The State newspaper today. Check out the profile and thanks to everyone who made that possible.
3. Nikki Villagomez — a friend, designer and blogger — is speaking at an AIGA South Carolina event tomorrow night. I’d love to see you there. And to honor the occasion, I’ll be giving a copy of Powerlane Complete away as a door prize. Along with a copy of my (really, really) limited edition typeface specimen. 

Coming Soon: Powerlane

I’m putting the final touches on getting my new typeface family, Powerlane, live at MyFonts.com for purchase. In the meantime, I’ve posted a page with a sample of Powerlane and a typeface specimen PDF. Check it out and look back here for the official anouncement… hopefully this week.

Powerlane will feature 9 weights in both regular and oblique and an Outline version. A total of twenty fonts. Each font also has OpenType small caps and a handful of stylistic alternatives. Powerlane is inspired by 1920s constructivist posters. 

More coming soon...

So I just noticed that I haven’t posted since May. After publishing SbB Sorts and SbB Raceday, I got excited again about working with type. So I’ve been working on what will be my first commercial typeface family. In fact, I’ve been so focused on the typeface design, that all my other side projects have fallen by the wayside.

Expect my new typeface to show up online in the beginning of August.

I’ve got a list a mile long of potential blog posts. So hopefully once I get through this initial flood of tasks, I can move on to posting more frequently.

SbB Raceday and Raceday Oblique

I’ve finally gotten around to finishing SbB Raceday. It’s a bold display typeface, inspired by some of my modular projects. Available with regular and oblique versions. You can download it for free from the Download Fonts section.

This is my first typeface constructed using Glyphs. (I don’t count SbB Sorts since it’s a symbol font.) I really enjoyed using Glyphs. It’s much easier to use than other software I’ve used and very powerful.

New Flare Preset: Overcast

I still love the Iconfactory’s Flare app for the Mac. I’ve actually gotten to use it on some print projects lately with great results. Sure, with a little effort, I could probably replicate the effect in Photoshop, but Flare’s a lot more fun and pretty much effortless.

I’ve posted a new preset: Overcast. It will make a photo look dramatically overcast by desaturating it and adding a vignette and rough-edged border.

My new favorite technique with Flare is to apply it to art created in Illustrator. Adds a whole bunch of texture and character. The design below is a sample of my new Raceday font. On the left, the JPG exported from Illustrator. On the right, processed by Flare with my Overcast setting. Big difference.

SbB Sorts

SbB Sorts is a symbol font comprised of 66 simple icons. Over the years, I’ve needed many of these symbols for a quick layout or comp and had to take time to draw them. So I made this as a time saver for me, but figured someone else out there might also benefit from it. SbB Sorts includes:

• Social symbols: Simple icons for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and more. Plus a Like-style thumbs up.
• Random shapes: Locks, triangles, stars, a heart, dice and other potentially useful items.

A quick tip: If you are using a Creative Suite app, your best bet for finding a particular icon is to use the Glyphs Palette. Much faster than randomly typing characters.

You can download SbB Sorts for free in the Download Fonts section.

Design and Code: My Next Steps

I haven’t posted in a while – mainly because of a newborn baby and the corresponding lack of time and energy. But I’ve also taken a break because I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with Sketchbook B.

Sketchbook B is my outlet for side projects. Those fun or challenging projects that end up in my sketchbook that I want to build for myself. What I’ve noticed recently is that most of the side projects that I’m really interested in will require me to learn to program to some degree.

I’ve worked with web design before, but I never really truly embraced writing HTML/CSS/Javascript by hand. I’ve played around with Objective C, but I’m ready to get serious about iOS development. I’ve designed type, but I never tapped into the added power of using Python.

If I really want to design in these spaces – and have the control I want – I need to get comfortable with code.

I’m started the process of learning. My real focus is on Objective C, Xcode and iOS development. I’ve already been working off and on since last year on learning Objective C. I’m going to try and move forward with developing some apps. I’ve got a bunch of resources that I will be trying out and hopefully posting about.

I’m working a little bit with HTML/CSS/Javascript with CodeAcademy. I do know HTML/CSS reasonably well, but I figured a refresher wouldn’t hurt. And I’ve never really done much more than tinker with Javascript.

I’m leaving Python for last. The typeface development tools are pretty sophisticated as they are. I’m happy with Glyphs and I look forward to working with RoboFont in the future. Python adds power to the development process, but I can develop type without learning Python. So I’ll hold off on that until I have Objective C under my belt.

The result of all this learning is that I will likely be doing fewer typefaces and one-off projects over the next year. Instead, I’m going to be posting about the learning process and other topics that interest me.

But my real focus for the foreseeable future is learning a ton. And hopefully – eventually – that will mean lots of new projects in new areas.