Hello my DART classmates,
My name is Donny Trương. I was in your seat over 20 years ago. I was in the inaugural graduating class of the DART program in 2001. Some of my fellow graduates have become successful in real estate, marketing, instructional design, and so on, which are great. The DART program will prepare you for anything. As for me, I am still in the game after 24 years. If you are concerned about your future in this program, I can reassure you that you will have a long career ahead.
Nowadays, I am Director of Design and Web Services at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Fairfax, Virginia from Monday to Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, I teach snowboarding at Whitetail Resort. If you want to learn skiing or snowboarding, come to Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. We’ll ride on the lift together and talk about typography.
Speaking of typography, Professor Li has informed me that you have been learning about the history of typography. Isn’t it fascinating? Since you have learned about the history of typography, I wanted to share with you the history of web typography. I wrote the whole presentation, but I decided to scrap that talk. Instead of giving you more history lectures, I wanted to share with you practical examples of my own approach to typography.
Video Résumé
Let’s kick-off with a short video résumé I created for a graduate course on professional design practices. The video was created in 2014 to show why I loved the web and why it was time for an exciting transformation to be a web designer. I used Freight Sans, designed by Joshua Darden. Freight Sans has a strong, sturdy quality that gets the message across quickly and legibly.
Professional Web Typography
Yes, I went back to school to pursue an MA in graphic design at George Mason University School of Art. Why? Because I wanted to take advantage of the free tuition as an employee for George Mason. I did not have a clear goal in mind. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. In fact, I was even surprised when I got accepted. One of the requirements to get into the graphic design program was to submit a portfolio of graphic design samples. I didn’t have any print materials to show, but I had tons of digital materials. I went ahead and submitted my digital works.
Once I got into the program, it opened up a whole new world for me. I had the freedom to explore, experiment, and execute. For example, I proposed to write a book on web typography for an independent study. I wanted to write this book to scratch my own itch. At the time, typography was exploding on the web, but I hadn’t found a book that would teach me professional typography and showed me the CSS techniques at the same time.
The primary purpose was to get an “A” for my independent study, but I also wanted to experiment with using the web as a book format. I decided to publish it online because I could do so independently. The book could be read on any device. I had control of the design. I could continue to update it as the codes continue to change. Readers can read it for free and they could pay for it in any amount they liked.
Vietnamese Typography
For my final thesis, I wrote another book on typography, but this one was much closer to my heart: Vietnamese Typography. As a Vietnamese-American designer, I was frustrated with the lack of support for the Vietnamese modern language, which is based on the Latin alphabet, but with a set of specific diacritics to dictate the tones.
When I started to do the research, I could not find any information on it. I had to rely on my typography knowledge and my own understanding of Vietnamese to come up with the content for the book. I had to go all the way back to my childhood memory to recall what I had learned in kindergarten and first grade to see how the diacritics flow with base letters.
After the book was published online for free once again, I got inquiries from type designers around the world to advise them on Vietnamese diacritics. It feels great to see that type designers care about supporting the Vietnamese language. They just needed a comprehensive guide to show them how to design Vietnamese diacritics.
I am happy to report that I had reached my goal for the book: enriching and expanding Vietnamese typography.
The text face is Fern, designed by David Jonathan Ross. Headers and captions are set in Adapter, designed by William Montrose and Sláva Jevčinová. In addition, I used tons of typefaces throughout the site.
Typographic Samples
The book was published 10 years ago, but I still continue to add new type recommendations for Vietnamese and create new typographic samples. In the first edition of the book, I wanted to give a few examples of typesetting in Vietnamese so that type designers could see how Vietnamese diacritics worked. In the second edition, I redesigned the entire site and expanded the sample section. It has become my favorite design exercise and experiment. Let take a look at a few examples:
Vietnamese Proverbs
While reading Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s beautiful, poignant The Mountains Sing, I highlighted all the Vietnamese proverbs she had incorporated throughout the novel. I love her straightforward translations of these proverbs. For this project, I pulled out all the proverbs from the book and set them in Every, designed by Anita Jürgeleit. I wanted to show the contrast between macro and micro sizes.
An article in the NY Times
In this sample, I added back diacritical marks to make Vietnamese text accessible to Vietnamese readers. The sampled article is typeset in Kaius, designed by Lisa Fischbach, and Job Clarendon, designed by David Jonathan Ross and Bethany Heck, and Change, by Alessio Leonardi. I also enhanced Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Hà Nội reading list with beautiful book covers.
Beacon of HOV
I have always been a huge fan of JAY-Z. Underneath his flamboyant flows, he packed his rhymes with articulated alliterations, meticulous metaphors, and witty wordplays. When listening to his music, I always found something new and intriguing.
In 2023, the Brooklyn Public Library held a tribute exhibition to JAY-Z and it was called the “Book of HOV.” I was inspired to create a webpage with my favorite JAY-Z lines and I called it the “Beacon of HOV.” I also translated his lyrics into Vietnamese to fit the project. For this project I play around with all of the display typefaces I could get my hands on.
Scalia Law Website
As I introduced myself in the beginning, I am director of design and web services at Antonin Law School, George Mason University. Prior to my promotion into the director position, I was web services developer. The job required backend programming skills, which I did not have. I never had to run and maintain my own server before. I never worked in a content management system called MODX.
During the interview, I only showed my front-end web design works. My predecessor gave me a take-home exam, in which I had to access the server via the command line, change the data in the database, and update the dynamic course schedule. I didn’t even know how to use the command line. I wanted to give up, but I didn’t want to be embarrassed. I googled and phoned two backend developer friends for help. I spent 2 sleepless nights on the exam. I finally got something to run, but I didn’t know if it worked correctly. I submitted my exam even though I did not plan on taking the job.
They called me in for the final interview and offered the job, in which I was surprised. I told the supervisor that I did not have the backend skills for this job, but I was willing to learn. She told me, “You can learn about the backends. We will send you to training. We hired you because you will bring your strong design skills to our web presence.” She took a chance and me and I couldn’t let her down.
I spent the first six months getting trained in Red Hat Linux, learning about the CMS templating system, ripping away the HTML and CSS, and rebuilding the site from the ground up. I learned a ton. The latest version incorporated grid layouts and typeset in Pelago and Minion, designed by Robert Slimbach.
Covid & Climate
Next, I would like to share a project that was commissioned by the Mural Arts Philadelphia. In early September 2020, Shari Hersh, director environmental justice at Mural Arts Philadelphia, reached out to me after she came across an interactive project I worked on. Her team had been working on a project to unearth the hidden connections between Covid-19 and Climate Change. She invited me to design a website for it.
In late December 2020, we scheduled a kickoff meeting via Zoom. Unfortunately, it was on the same day I had to make one of the toughest decisions in my life. Should my mother who contracted Covid-19 get on the ventilator? I called off the meeting. I told Shari and her team that I had an emergency related to Covid-19 and that I could not take on the project at the moment.
My mother passed away after her brutal battle with Covid-19. I spent two months grieving. In late January 2021, I sent Ms. Hersh an apology and checked in to see if she had found a web designer for the project. I felt bad for dropping the ball on her and her team, but I did not expect to get the job. Her team was in the process of interviewing several candidates for the project. Twenty four hours later, they decided to move forward with me.
The site consisted of high-quality SVGs converting from original artworks. Each piece of artwork featured handwritten text as well as headings set in Korinna, designed by H. Berthold AG. For reading text, I proposed Forma DJR, designed by David Jonathan Ross.
With all the materials on hand, I designed the website quickly. Since this project was one of its kind, it was not tied into any content management system or technology, I had the complete freedom to design and develop from the ground up.
The site was straight up HTML and CSS with heavy use of SVGs. I used a bit of PHP to make the site easy to manage and to update. Because all of the illustrations were in vector format, they look great on any device.
I learned a great deal while putting the site together. I read all the pages just to make sure all the characters and punctuations were correct, but also to learn about these invaluable discoveries based on facts and thorough research. I love the balance between engaging illustration and insightful content. I dedicated this project to my mother.
Go the Fuck to Sleep
I have many more projects to share, but let’s end on a high note. This motion graphic piece was inspired by the satirical children book titled, Go the Fuck to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach. As a father of four boys, I could relate to the book.
When I listened to Samuel L. Jackson narrating the story, I couldn’t help firing up Flash and creating some animation. The type was set in Univers, designed by Adrian Frutiger.
Thank you for your time.