Entertaining and informing dozens since 2008

Each week for a year, I’m designing a shirt and releasing it on my Threadless store. This is the design for week 33.

I’ve been writing here on Sketchbook B for ten years this week — about 520 posts. Basically averaging a post a week for ten years. Most blogs don’t make it ten posts, but I’ve kept this site going consistently for a full decade.

Recently I started to talk to friends who had blogs, and now don’t. And their reasons for abandoning their blogs were all pretty much the same… it didn’t feel like anyone was reading. No one cared. And so, they stopped writing.

Believe me, I understand that feeling. I’ll craft a blog post that I think is great, and ten people will read it. Being an obscure blogger can be discouraging.

Over the last year, I’ve recommitted to writing for myself and I’ve been happier with the posts I’m publishing. Every so often, I’ll look at my analytics and slip into the “no one cares about what I’m writing” trap, but for the most part, I don’t allow traffic — or more precisely, the lack of traffic — bother me. I write for me, and I hope people like it and go away inspired.

I wanted to design a shirt to commemorate not just the ten years of Sketchbook B, but also the struggle of the obscure blogger. The person who writes in relative anonymity, because they love writing.

This week’s shirt, Obscure Blogger, I wanted to use one of my typeface designs, so it features one of my Fontstruct designs — SbB Epyx — and the tagline “Entertaining and informing dozens since 2008.” 2008 was the year I started Sketchbook B, but I’m happy to make custom variants with different dates if you want them. Just reach out and let me know what year you started your obscure blog and I’ll add it to the Threadless store, too.

You can purchase Obscure Blogger at my Threadless store.

A closeup, since it's a little hard to read on the mockup.

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. Follow Bob on Twitter, Instagram and Micro.Blog.