Design Inside

This is what you get when you put a group of creative minds together.

Design Inside is what we (designers of College Relations) have been picking out our brains for almost a year and sweating on for the past two weeks. It’s an exhibition showcases web sites, web banners, posters, brochures, books, magazines and other designs produced by the Office of College Relations. This is the image of the college. This is the art of communicating life at Vassar.

Design Inside was a learning experience for me since this is my first time working on an exhibition. It gave us an opportunity to collaborate and communicate closely between web and graphic designers. The best part was where each of our best skill was applied to the project. For example, Julia wrote our texts, George picked out the colors for the walls, Charlie designed the pedestals, Megg constructed a big sitemap, Chris created an interactive piece, and I used Flash for various banners display. As a result, everything comes together nicely.

If you don’t know, now you know.
Below is my brief biography written by Julia Van Devleder.

Donny Truong is a very visual guy, as you will see if you visit his personal website, VisualGUI.com. He’s apparently a punster, too, since G.U.I. also stands for Graphical User Interface.

Truong was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 12. He received his bachelor’s in Digital Arts and Multimedia Design at La Salle University in 2001, at which point the Office of College Relations scooped him right up.

Inspired by pure and elegant design, Truong says that “it’s sometimes not what you put in but what you take out…. I am obsessed with white space and breathing room.” Web designers often emphasize usability, and of course that’s important, Truong says. But he believes that aesthetically designed sites are easier to use than sites designed without attention to basic aesthetic principles.

In addition to his Vassar websites and his personal site, Truong designed and continues to develop iLoveNgocLan.com, a personal project to honor Ngoc Lan, a talented Vietnamese singer who has more than 600 songs to her credit. He also reads voraciously, watches movies, and writes reviews to hone his writing skills.

Actually? He ought to write restaurant reviews! Truong says he doesn’t cook, but he does eat. Check out his Blog for mouthwatering descriptions of some classic Vietnamese dishes.