Sitting in the lobby of the Alumni Center waiting for Jill to finish her finalist interview for the South Carolina regional science fair.

Sitting in the lobby of the Alumni Center waiting for Jill to finish her finalist interview for the South Carolina regional science fair.

Is it unusual that Columbia doesn’t have an Apple Store?

Back in 2016, I had a blog about retail developments in the Columbia, South Carolina area. And one of the most popular topics was why there wasn’t an Apple Store in Columbia.

Yesterday I was at Columbiana Mall and realized that the large Forever 21 is closing.¹ I’m always interested in Apple Store-sized vacancies in Columbia and I thought back to an analysis that I did almost 10 years ago² and wanted to see if anything has changed. Is it odd that Columbia doesn’t have an Apple Store?

Comparing MSAs

I needed to look at some population data and decided to start by looking at Metropolitan Statistic Area (MSA). An MSA is a way of classifying an urban core and its surrounding population. It’s better than using city population because it includes suburbs and outlying areas that are closely connected to the urban core.

For 2025, Columbia is the 70th largest MSA in the country. For context: Greenville-Anderson-Greer ranks 57; Charleston-North Charleston is 71; Augusta is 92. You can see the full list at Wikipedia.

I cross referenced all of the MSAs with the Apple Store list. In the top 75 MSAs in the country, only two do not have an Apple Store: Columbia (70) and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas (65).

McAllen-Edinburg-Mission is a geographically large area in South Texas that has a slightly larger population than Columbia but is spread out over a wider area.

Many MSAs that are smaller than Columbia have Apple Stores: Boise, ID (74); Greensboro, NC (78); Colorado Springs, CO (79); Little Rock, AR (80); Akron, OH (85); Madison, WI (87); Toledo, OH (97); Lexington, KY (109); and many more.

I looked at Combined Statistical Areas (CSA), too. CSA is similar to MSA, but includes a wider geographic area. Columbia-Sumter-Orangeburg CSA ranks 58th and is the largest CSA without an Apple Store.

So what does this mean?

Yes, it’s strange that Columbia doesn’t have an Apple Store. Most cities similar in size to Columbia have Apple Stores. Lots of cities smaller than Columbia have Apple Stores.

But why?

I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s a combination of three factors:

1. There isn’t an ideal location for an Apple Store in Columbia. In most markets, Apple locates in established shopping malls. That leaves Columbiana Mall as the only option right now, but Apple’s had plenty of opportunities to locate there and they haven’t. I assume that it’s just not centrally located enough… Maybe someday, Bull Street or whatever is taking the place of Richland Mall will be an option, but it isn’t today.

2. Greenville, Charlotte, Augusta and Charleston all have stores. These stores are a drivable distance from Columbia. Apple may assume that Columbia customers are covered by these stores.

3. Apple isn’t adding new markets any more. Apple will occasionally put an additional store in a market they are already in. Or remodel an existing store. They will build large flagship stores in international metropolitan areas. But they aren’t really adding new stores in the U.S. markets they aren’t already in. Columbia simply missed the initial expansion rush and is now just out of luck.

Columbia is big enough to support an Apple Store. We’ll see if it ever happens. I think a future location near downtown — Bull Street or Forest Acres — makes the most sense.³

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

Slightly melted

We’ve been visiting a new Lutheran Church since Christmas. Today during the children’s sermon, Pastor Emily was discussing the changing of the paraments to purple for the Lenten season. She then mentioned that the cross on the altar had changed, too. I noticed the paraments, but hadn’t noticed the different cross. It was black and very slightly warped on the right side. Turns out that the church had burned down in the 1940s, and this altar cross survived. During Lent, the blackened, slightly melted cross replaces the shiny cross that’s on the altar the rest of the year.

I love this. I love that they didn’t throw it out, or try to “fix” it. The cross was changed, and they found a new, appropriate use for it. I love how our worship space changes with the liturgical season, but this felt especially poignant.

We’ve been through a lot over the last decade or so. And I feel often like I’m changed. Different than I was. Slightly melted? And I’m not always sure where or how I fit in. This cross is a reminder that sometimes, after the drama and trauma, we are changed. Maybe we have a different purpose and place. Still valuable, but no longer the same. And that’s something to celebrate.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

📺 Watching Drive to Survive Season 7. Ready for the F1 season to start next weekend.

📺 Watching Drive to Survive Season 7. Ready for the F1 season to start next weekend.

I think every social media platform should allow multiple links in a post.

I think every social media platform should allow multiple links in a post.

Rich People Are Firing a Cash Cannon at the US Economy—But at What Cost? Apple News+ / Bloomberg Another reason why severe wealth inequity...

Rich People Are Firing a Cash Cannon at the US Economy—But at What Cost?

Apple News+ / Bloomberg

Another reason why severe wealth inequity is bad for the long term economic health of the nation.

Five lectures

I mentioned earlier this week that the Edward Tufte workshop in Atlanta eight years ago was a driving factor in returning to graduate school, but that’s actually a partial truth. There were actually five lectures that sparked an interest in design research and grad school. All of them held in vast hotel meeting rooms with hundreds of attendees, but each of them connecting with me on a deeper level.

Jonah Lehrer, AIGA Gain Conference, October 2008, New York City

Gain was AIGA’s “Business of Design” conference¹ and there was a roster of big wig, influential speakers. Jonah Lehrer was there to talk about his best-selling book, Proust was a Neuroscientist. Lehrer connected creativity with neuroscience advancements, arguing that artists often figured out how the brain worked before scientists did. This concept that neuroscience and creativity could be linked was fascinating to me. A few years after this talk, Lehrer was found to have plagiarized and fabricated quotes in his later works, making this a strange choice to start my list, but after his talk, I started to think about design work a little differently. There is a recording of the talk, but sadly, no audio for some reason.

Malcolm Gladwell, AIGA Gain Conference, October 2008, New York City

Same conference as Jonah Lehrer, but one day later. Malcolm Gladwell spoke about his forthcoming book, Outliers. People often criticize Gladwell for oversimplifying the research he builds on, but in that moment — combined with the Lehrer speech the day before — I could see connections between social sciences and design. I read Outliers afterwards and really enjoyed it, but could honestly never really get into Gladwell’s other work. Hidden somewhere on the AIGA servers is a complete recording of the lecture.

Kevin Larson, Typecon, July 2009, Atlanta

I loved Typecon Atlanta. Looking back at my notes and blog posts, I wrote about the inspiring speakers, the networking and the creative exploration of letterpress and hand lettering. I did not specifically note a lecture by Kevin Larson, which is really funny, because that’s the one that ended up being most influential for me. Larson is research scientist working for Microsoft and I remember his talk about the science of readability. How does the human brain process letterforms? And then form words and meaning? His general idea was that designers think they understand how readability works, but research shows that other factors are involved and room for improvement. There isn’t a recording around that I’m aware of, but I did find a 2013 talk with Larson and legendary designer Matthew Carter discussing collaborating on the design of a typeface using letter recognition testing. Like the Lehrer and Gladwell talks, the idea of using science to better understand type design was exciting to me.

Edward Tufte, Presenting Data and Information, February 2017, Atlanta

In 2017², I was becoming interested in how information is structured and I’d read a little bit about Edward Tufte’s work. I drove down to Atlanta for a one-day workshop, expecting to learn how to design better presentations. In actuality, I left pondering the difference between designing to persuade and designing to inform. Too often, we don’t try to communicate information and let viewers come to their own conclusions. Instead, when we make presentations, we’ve already drawn conclusions and are trying to persuade people that those conclusions are correct. After the lecture wrapped up, I hopped on I-20 for the normally a 3.5 hour drive. That night, however, it was a 6 hour drive because of an accident on a bridge on the interstate. I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted out of my career.

Khoi Vinh, AIGA Leadership Retreat, June 2017, Dallas

The AIGA Leadership Retreat is a strange event. Part conference, part pep-rally, part-training… chapter board members from all over the United States converge on a conference hotel in a random AIGA city. The 2017 confab was in Dallas and seemed almost entirely focused on IBM’s push into design thinking.³ So I was really surprised when Khoi Vinh showed up to talk about the importance of criticism in the design industry. I’d been a fan of Khoi Vinh for a long time since his days at The NY Times and I’d even used his short-lived app, Mixel. For me, this brief talk contrasted with the heavy design thinking push and made me question many of the assumptions I’d made about the design industry on a macro scale. I found a longer 2018 talk that covers many of the same themes.

At the end of that summer, I started to talk to people around campus trying to figure out which Master’s program I wanted to apply to. As an employee benefit, the University of South Carolina allows staff to take up to four classes a year. In January 2018, I connected with Camea, the graduate school coordinator in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications and learned about their research-focused MA program. I crammed for the math section of the GRE, applied and was accepted. I started the program in Fall 2018 and I fell in love with process of research. When I finished my MA in 2021, I rolled right into the Ph.D. program (which I’m still trying working on).

I’ve been to a bunch of talks, lectures and conferences over the years. Years later, I still think about these five and credit them with laying the groundwork for interest in MA and Ph.D. level research.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

Yesterday, my middle schooler lost his backpack with his school-issued Chromebook, his homework and two library books. It’s a long...

Yesterday, my middle schooler lost his backpack with his school-issued Chromebook, his homework and two library books. It’s a long story, but after a period of panic, we found it in the high school front office.

Last night, we put an AirTag on his bag… just in case it happens again.

My sleep schedule has been a little bit off lately… went to bed early, woke up a little after midnight, came downstairs and my daughter...

My sleep schedule has been a little bit off lately… went to bed early, woke up a little after midnight, came downstairs and my daughter was still up finishing homework/procrastinating.

Eight years ago today, I attended an Edward Tufte workshop in Atlanta. I left questioning so many assumptions about how designers present...

Eight years ago today, I attended an Edward Tufte workshop in Atlanta. I left questioning so many assumptions about how designers present information and how people process data. It was one of the driving forces behind my return to grad school.

My son’s middle school has been sending an email, a text message and a pre-recorded phone call every Sunday night at 6:30. Thankfully,...

My son’s middle school has been sending an email, a text message and a pre-recorded phone call every Sunday night at 6:30. Thankfully, the principal just mentioned in the email that she’s not going to do the phone call anymore after talking to parents. There is such a thing as over communicating.

The start of another season. Ryan had some really nice saves today. 🥍

The start of another season. Ryan had some really nice saves today. 🥍

Nicknaming places

I realized the other day that our family tends to give places nicknames and that to an outside observer, our place names would be undecodable. Here are a few of my favorites.

• St. Mary Ashley. In reality, this church is St. Mary Episcopal Church, but our former babysitter, Mary Ashley got married here. It’s on my drive home and when my wife would ask where I was, I’d say “I’m by St. Mary, you know, where Mary Ashley got married.” Eventually, I shortened it to St. Mary Ashley.
• The Honeybaked Ham Plant. Not far past St. Mary Ashley is sprawling industrial facility. Once owned by Honeywell, it’s now operated by Shaw Industries and makes carpet fibers.¹ It obviously does not “make” hams, but I guess at some point, Honeywell became Honeybaked. If I told my wife I was near the Shaw Industries plant, she’d have no idea where I was.
• The Ballerina Gas Station. It’s in Ballentine, South Carolina and when Norah was very little, she misunderstood where we were stopping to fill up. It stuck.(I found out recently that at least one of my kids thought it was really called the Ballerina Gas Station.)
• All the Starbucks. We have nicknames for all of our frequent Starbucks stops. “Neighborhood Starbucks” is by our house and is a typical new Starbucks. “Grad School Starbucks” is where I did all my grad school studying when I first went back to school. It was the closest to our house until Neighborhood Starbucks was built. It is also an icebox so it’s important to let the kids know if we are going to Grad School Starbucks because they will need a sweatshirt. “Ballerina Starbucks” is in Ballentine, obviously. (See above.) A Starbucks without a nickname is a Starbucks that we don’t visit.²

There are others. Are we the only family that does this? Or does your family have informal names for places that you visit?

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

If you don’t value government, everything looks like waste.

If you don’t value government, everything looks like waste.

Long day ahead of me, but the weekend is on the other side.

Long day ahead of me, but the weekend is on the other side.

Nine years ago, I wasn't in a mass shooting

I still have Facebook, primarily to check my memories. Usually, it’s something funny that the kids said, or some family pictures. But today was different:

“Just left Columbiana in a stampede. Rumored shooting. Scary.”

We’d gone to Columbiana Mall near our house to do some shopping and stopped at the Red Robin near the exit to get some dinner before heading home. After dinner, we stepped out of the restaurant into a stampede of people running toward us. A woman yelled “Go! There was a shooting!” as she ran past. We darted back inside Red Robin and left through their exits. I had Norah and Jill, and we got briefly separated from Ryan and my wife, Liz as we left through different doors. We found each other, ran to the car and got the hell out of there as police and first responders poured into the parking lot from all directions.

That is one of Ryan’s earliest memories. Four years old. Being separated from his sisters. He actually brought it up the other day and commented that he still hates going to the mall.

Here’s the weird thing. The mall locked down, but a shooter was never found. In fact, there was no evidence of a shooting at all. Best guess was that there was a fight, and someone fired an Airsoft gun. It was enough to set off the panic and the stampede. And so there wasn’t a shooting, but there was a panic. (Sadly, in 2022, there actually was a shooting at the mall.)

So thanks for the memory, Facebook. That’s one I’d rather forget.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

It’s been a long week, y’all.

It’s been a long week, y’all.

They are about to start work on the riverfront trails near my house, eventually connecting to 27 miles of riverfront trails. They’ve been...

They are about to start work on the riverfront trails near my house, eventually connecting to 27 miles of riverfront trails. They’ve been trying to make this happen for as long as I can remember. Would be fun to ride a bike from the suburbs along the river to downtown Columbia.

AI and Design: It’s what you make of it.

I attended a lecture tonight at the University of South Carolina with Helen Armstrong, professor and researcher from NC State. The talk was well attended… mostly students with a handful of professional designers sprinkled in. I didn’t take notes, but figured I’d share some quick impressions.

• Designers need to learn to use AI. Think of artificial intelligence as a tool that we can wield to design more effectively. The point isn’t that AI will do the whole project, but that we can choose how to implement AI tools most effectively.

• Designers need to partner with data scientists to maximize the impact of AI tools. Helen talked about the importance of partnering with data scientists to understand the tools and help focus AI products.

• Designers can craft the interface to AI. Right now, we think of most AI tools as text prompts, but designers can work to help build the interfaces that allow people to get the most out of the tools.

• Students are nervous. During the question and answer session, several students wanted to talk about the role of AI in hiring and worried that employers who might value young designers less because an AI can do it. The nervousness surprised me a little, but it shouldn’t have. The tasks that young designers are often given are likely easier to automate. But I thought Helen made a great point… AI in the hands of a designer will be more effective that AI in the hands of non-designer.

• A great homework assignment. My friend Kris asked Helen for a homework assignment” for experimenting with AI and I loved her response. First, spend 15 minutes a day playing around with a large language model to familiarize yourself with the possibilities. Second, subscribe to a range of AI newsletters to keep up with advancements.

I purchased Helen’s book, Big Data, Big Design: Why Designers should care about artificial intelligence, from Amazon during the Q&A section. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I tend to be skeptical about the ability of AI to completely automate the creative process, but I agree completely with Helen that artificial intelligence is a tool that is here to stay. And that tool will make us more efficient as designers. She drew a comparison to the popularization of computer driven design in the 1990s. Desktop publishing changed what we designed and how we designed, but there was still an important role for designers.

I pay attention to developments in AI and play around with tools, but I think I need to get more serious about trying to find opportunities to incorporate AI into my creative process. And I probably should start to think about academic research topics into user perception of AI.

Unrelated to the topic of AI… it was so nice to be in McMaster 214 tonight with a small crowd. Back when AIGA South Carolina was rolling, we had a bunch of great lectures in that space. While AIGA SC didn’t survive COVID, I’m glad to see USC’s School of Visual Art and Design leading the way with some great programming and bringing the creative community together. I’ve missed it.

Bob Wertz is a type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s been blogging since 2008.

Long day ahead of me today. A couple of important meetings, a 3-hour grad seminar, more meetings… and then if I have the energy,...

Long day ahead of me today. A couple of important meetings, a 3-hour grad seminar, more meetings… and then if I have the energy, I’m going to try to go to a talk on campus about AI and art.

I’m taking an asynchronous class on survey development. The professor’s comments on assignments are constructive and helpful,...

I’m taking an asynchronous class on survey development. The professor’s comments on assignments are constructive and helpful, but her grading rubric is massively complex. We’re talking fractional points with varying weights. I’ve been a grad student for a really long time and I’ve never seen a grading scale this complicated. I’ve read over my last assignment several times and I can’t figure out for the life of me how I got an A.

I’ve pretty much stopped posting to Instagram. I have issues with Meta, but that wasn’t the driving factor. In fact, it...

I’ve pretty much stopped posting to Instagram. I have issues with Meta, but that wasn’t the driving factor. In fact, it wasn’t really an intentional shift… I just stopped enjoying Instagram. Now I’m posting images to Micro.Blog and cross posting to Bluesky and Threads.

Shots from last night at Craft and Draft in Irmo. Lizzy was very entertained by, well, everything.

Shots from last night at Craft and Draft in Irmo. Lizzy was very entertained by, well, everything.

It’s easier to destroy than to govern.

It’s easier to destroy than to govern.

Proud of Jilly. Honorable mention in the district science fair.

Proud of Jilly. Honorable mention in the district science fair.