A long time ago in a borough far, far away, I tried to do this thing called Brain Fodder. Its whole purpose was to feature brain foddery things like neat articles or excerpts or creative works. I even tried to coerce my super awesome creative friends into talking about the creative process and how they make things.

But things, as they always tend to do, happened. I got busy. Work consumed every morsel of my brain. Who knew patents and patent validity and patent eligibility and patentability could be so difficult? The last thing I wanted to do post-work was write more about brainy things.

But hey, that was 2010. This year, I’m bringing Brain Fodder back. So back them other brains won’t know how to act.

Like a true narcissistic writer, I’ll start with myself.

You might have noticed I changed the layout and added a spiffy new graphic. The old layout and its serif-ness felt a bit too old. As for the header, I wanted something that reflected exploredreamdiscover: curiosity, adventure, deep-sea exploration (It’s happening, I promise.).

First up: handwritten.

It was simple. It felt personal and approachable. But I wasn’t in love with it.

So, I went back to this typography site and revisited Spider Type. When an ever so wise design guru friend told me it didn’t quite fit me, I, of course, took this and decided: Challenge accepted.

The header, in its original iteration, was the title in Spider Type. That is, until I pasted the “E” onto a new document. It was entirely too big for the page and unrecognizable. I liked it. I tried other letters, but they left awkward white space or were legible despite their size.

I pasted the “E” over and over again.

I like that it could represent many things — endless curiosity, tangled thought patterns, synapses when the brain is stimulated.

Most importantly, it’s something that demands closer inspection. It reminds us that what at first may seem unfamiliar could very well just be a simple, everyday object presented in a distorted way.

In this case, it’s the “E” — the most used letter in the English language.