Back to Black

The new version of Visual Gui goes black. For this redesign I am experimenting with dark background and legibility. I wanted to see how well a serif typeface reads on a dark background. Readability has always been my concern; therefore, I hardly take this approach. Then again, I don’t see any reason not to give it a shot since this is a personal site after all. If it doesn’t work out, I can always redesign it again.

Making the switch from white to dark background is the boldest move in this new version, but another change that I have wanted to push is getting rid of the standard navigation. Although this is not something new, I wanted to have one sentence that describes me: “Donny Truong is a Visual Gui who loves to learn, read, write, and omit needless design.” The second sentence, “He recently published a book on web type,” will change to promote my latest project or highly something special. If users want the standard navigation, they can always find it at the footer of the site.

For the work section, omit needless design, I took out all of the screenshots and provided a short blurb for each project. The learn section has been simplified to highlight only a handful of projects I have created in my graduate program. I also included a teaching section on the same page. The library section, which showcases the books I proudly own, is also reduced to one column.

As for the typefaces, I am combining Minion Pro Condensed, designed by Robert Slimbach, with Myriad Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly with Fred Brady and Christopher Slye. Because of the dark background, I wanted to have the most neutral typefaces so that they don’t distract the readers. I also needed the typefaces that support Vietnamese language. These two workhorse types do the job.

I hope you enjoy the dark version of the site.