Updated Again

So I went from Hypatia Sans to using system fonts to Alda and Acumin in one week. The system font is simply not cutting it. I am keeping the minimal WordPress theme, but pulled out of the 10K Apart contest. Again this is my personal site so I get to play with it as much as I want to, but I think this is it for the moment. I’ll do a major redesign in early 2017. Richard Fink’s “Webfonts on the Prairie” resonates with me and brings me back to using webfonts again even though the file size is tremendous. Then again, typography is the only design element on this site so I am OK with making the investment in fonts.

Re-typesetting Thơ Mưa

Thơ Mưa gets new fonts. The text face is Cormorant Garamond and the title is set in Cormorant Upright. Both typefaces designed by Christian Thalmann for Google Fonts. They look great for literary work.

Scalia Law Identity

Added a new portfolio page showcasing the branding for Antonin Scalia Law School. Take a look.

Do Designers Create Their Own Site Anymore?

I was listening to a design podcast on the topic of creating a portfolio. The two hosts spent about forty minutes discussing typical-but-helpful tips such as what makes a great portfolio, what projects to include, and how to display the works. 

In the last few minutes of the episode, they recommended designers to invest in an online portfolio. They plugged their own sites as examples. Unfortunately, they both use a third-party service like Squarespace and Adobe Portfolio.

One of the two hosts stated that designers don’t need to design and code their portfolio because it is a waste of time.  Services like Squarespace already have well-designed templates with homogenized elements.

No wonder sites, particularly web portfolios, look so much the same these days. With these services available at their finger tips, have designers given up creating and coding their own site these days? If that’s the case than it is a shame. 

When designers code their own site they have total control. Because they only use the markups and CSS properties they need, they can easily optimize their site for fast performance. Furthermore, they can demonstrate their coding skills to potential employers. I encourage designers to create their own site because  HTML and CSS aren’t hard to learn and they give them tremendous power.

Styling OpenType Fonts

Wrote a new chapter for Professional Web Typography on “Styling OpenType Fonts.” This chapter unlocks the hidden power in OpenType features. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. I also would like to thank readers who paid for the book. You allow me to continue to make updates on this book.

Typographically Trịnh Reached 100

With a bit of cheating, I completed my Typographically Trịnh in 77 instead of 100 days. My patience has ran out, but I do not like leaving a project incomplete. As a result, I just wanted to get it done and out of my system.

In retrospect, it was much more challenging than I had expected. The biggest hurdle is the lack of typefaces for the Vietnamese language. I ended up reusing lots of typefaces and with different combinations. There is 21 usable typefaces in Typekit directory. Because Google Fonts has display issue in Safari, I had to abandon it. As much as I did not want to self-host the fonts, I had to in order to use some of the types in Google Fonts.

As for the content, I still have tremendous love for Trịnh’s lyrics. I am sure I could do 100 more if I wanted to. I intentionally left out all of his anti-war songs. Although he was such a great ballad songwriter, I only chose a handful of his romantic lyricism. My main interest were lyrics that has to do with life and death. I’ll definitely use this site again and again to read his words.

I need to take a break from the site, but I will come back again to tweak some of the designs. I might add in more quotes or change out quotes if I come across something inspiring. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I had creating them. Now that the project is complete. I am now turning my attention back to this blog. It will be politic as usual.

Taking a Break From Typographically Trịnh

With 10 new quotes added, Typographically Trịnh is now up to day 40. The project started 33 days ago, which means I am seven days ahead of schedule. After many sleepless hours devoted to making and remaking the pieces, I am feeling the burn; therefore, I am taking a break from it.

A bigger reason to walk away from the project for a bit is that I have exhausted my type options. Typekit has 16 typefaces that have Vietnamese characters. Even though I had mixed them up to create different combinations, I am running out of choices to work with. I even cheated a bit by using non-Vietnamese-supported typefaces for words that do not required diacritical marks. For example, “cho nhau,” “say,” and “em” do not required any Vietnamese character. Although “,” “từ bi” and “” need an acute and grave, they already built into the Latin alphabet.

My hope is that Typekit will add more Vietnamese typefaces in the near future. On the other hand, I am extremely disappointed with Google Fonts. They still haven’t fixed issue on iOS Safari. Other type designers pointed out this issue 18 days ago. I noticed this issue many months ago and they still have not fixed the problem. If this issue happened at Typekit, they would have jumped on it already. Google Fonts offers a handful of new typefaces for Vietnamese language, but the display issue make them useless on the web. Google, please fix the problem.

Resetting Typographically Trịnh

Over the long weekend, I reworked Typographically Trịnh to take out typefaces served via Google Fonts. As much as I wanted to use some new faces from Google directory, its issue in Safari—missing Vietnamese fonts—makes the service unusable. I knew the issue way before I started Typographically Trịnh, but I wanted them to see the problem so they can resolve it. Sadly they still have not done anything.

Now I am forced to use only Typekit, which limits my choices for setting type in Vietnamese, but I know for sure that know for sure that it will display correctly everywhere. In addition, Typekit service is outstanding. I reported similar  issue a while ago and fixed it within a few days. Google Fonts, on the other hand, has done nothing for many months.

It’s a shame that they have a decent selection of Vietnamese typefaces, but they are not usable on the web. I really do hope they will resolve the issue soon. 

Vietnamese Typography is Featured on Typekit

Vietnamese Typography is one of the two sites Typekit likes this week to highlight some advanced web typography. Sally Kerrigan writes:

Donny Truong’s site gets deep into the history and current implementations of Vietnamese typography, and is itself a great example of our character subsets in use. It’s also a great design. Body text is set in Garamond Premier Pro, and the headings and navigation are set in Acumin. (The display heading is Acumin Extra Condensed.)

Thank you, Sally.

Samples of Vietnamese Typesetting

I just launched a new section on Vietnamese Typography called samples, in which I create individual pages to showoff Vietnamese typesetting.

So far I had created a sample of a short story, article, restaurant menu , and recipe page. I also featured Thơ Mưa to demonstrate poetry.

One of the reasons I created the sample page is to replace the literary example section. Although no one pointed out to me, I was not sure if the literary examples were useful to type designers. As a result, I retired the section.

I am planning on adding more samples. If you have any suggestion, please let me know.

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