The name Vũ Thành An is synonymous with “Những bài không tên,” a series of untitled Vietnamese love songs. Because these songs were written about his past lovers, the famed Vietnamese musician and composer didn’t want to reveal their names. The first ten songs in the series had been covered countless of times by several generations of Vietnamese singers. The rest hadn’t been recorded much; therefore, I would like to put together a collection so the pieces can be read as poems. Even though the series has 112 songs, many of them are missing. I collected as many of them as I could find. For typesetting, I selected NaN Druid and Nan Druid Sans, designed by Anna Khorash and Reymund Schröder. Enjoy reading!

I had always wanted to translate Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go into Vietnamese, but I hadn’t found the time. Fortunately, Nhã Thuyên beat me to it and she had done the justice in capturing Dr. Seuss’s uplifting prose. In this typographic sample, I wanted to showcase both languages side by side. I also keep the color scheme from the book. Since the focus is on typography, I left off the illustrations. The sample page is typeset in NaN Success, designed by Jérémy Landes, and NaN Serf, designed by Daria Cohen, Fadhl Haqq, Léon Hugues, Jean-Baptiste Morizot, Luke Prowse, and Florian Runge. Now you can enjoy Dr. Seuss’s classic in Vietnamese as well.

The moral guides in Lisa 0. Engelhardt’s Right and Wrong and Being Strong are applicable not only for kids, but also for adults. I had learned a thing or two from this Elf-help book. Since Minh Hiền has done an exceptional job of translating the original text into Vietnamese, I decided to create a typographic sample page to showcase both languages. For typesetting, I settled on Thow, designed by Dương Trần, a young and rising type designer living in Hà Nội, Việt Nam.

Quốc Bảo’s 9 Bài Ru is a series of nine songs titled “Ru” (Lull). On the record, the melodies are melancholy and the lyrics are alluring. On the page, Quốc Bảo’s words become poetry. Through minimal arrangements, Nguyên Hà, Phạm Hoài Nam, and June Nguyễn had done an excellent job of telling his stories with their captivating vocals. Through typography, however, readers get the direct experience from his words. They don’t have to follow the singers. They can read at their own pace and draw their own stories through the rain, the storm, and the lover. For the lyrics, I chose Jean-Baptiste Morizo’s NaN Tragedy, specifically the italic type because it sings. For display text, I settled on Robert Leuschke’s Love Light for its swelling cursiveness. Enjoy 9 poems of “Ru.”

Ann Lưu-Trọng is a storyteller. Through her len, she captures the beauty of isolation, displacement, and solitude. Her photography is often mysterious and ambiguous—leaving her visual narratives open to interpretation.

To showcase her work, I settled on a dark mode. The user interface recedes to the background to put the attention on the photography. The homepage features an automated slideshow to display a wide range of her work while the individual galleries showcase specific themes.

For typography, I chose Roboto Flex, designed by David Berlow, Santiago Orozco, Irene Vlachou, Ilya Ruderman, Yury Ostromentsky, and Mikhail Strukov, for its robustness and no-nonsense finesse.

The site is designed and developed using HTML, CSS, and bit of PHP. The galleries are powered by Flickity, developed by David DeSandro.

Visit Ann LT website.

Part of the Suisse superfamily, Suisse Int’l, designed by Ian Party, is rooted in the Swiss legacy, which emerged around the schools in Basel and Zürich in the 1950s. As a sans-serif workhorse with 18 fonts, Suisse Int’l offers versatility and flexibility for playful as well as purposeful typesetting. Suisse Int’l is equipped with sturdy diacritics. For Vietnamese, its acute, grave, and hook above stack to the right of its circumflex.

Taking inspiration from Geometric Sans while staying true to its Grotesque roots, Only Extended, designed by Emmanuel Rey and Quentin Schmerbe, brings something new to the Swiss aesthetics. With its monospace design, offbeat letter proportions, and super shorts ascenders and descenders, Only Extended is unconventional yet functional and fresh yet flexible. Only Extended supports for languages as diverse as Vietnamese, in which its acute, grave, and hook above stack to the right of its circumflex. I had the pleasure of working with Swiss Typefaces designers on Vietnamese diacritics for Open Extended.

Troy Leinster releases Retain, a contemporary grotesque for everyday use. Retain comes in nine upright weights and supports for over 390 languages. I had the pleasure of advising Troy in Vietnamese diacritics. Check out Retain.

Two days ago, July 3, 2024, David Jonathan Ross sent to his Font of the Month Club members a wonderful surprise: Pennyroyal DJR. I am down with his display experimentations, but I always love a solid book face. As soon as I downloaded Pennyroyal DJR to my machine, I had to use it for something and Visualgui is the place to play with.

The previous redesign of this blog was December 19, 2024, which was eight months ago. That was a long time for this blog redesign. I usually redesign or reset the types every three to four months. The previous design was set in Lang Gothic, a sans-serif typeface. I am now moving back to a serif book face. Initially, I set everything in Pennyroyal DJR, but then I wanted to add a sans-serif typeface for smaller texts and UI elements. I ended up setting body text and large headers in Pennyroyal DJR and complementary texts (smaller headers, time, and date) in Gimlet Sans. I also set code samples in Input Mono. All three typefaces designed by David Jonathan Ross.

For the look and feel, I wanted to resemble a book. For the light mode, I chose a light-cream-paper background. For the dark mode, I chose a dark-brown-paper background. I do not have a theme switcher. The theme follows your device setting. If you set your device to light, you’ll get the light-paper theme. If you set your device to dark, you’ll get the dark-brown theme. My focus is always on readability.

I hope you will enjoy reading the second iteration of Visualgui 2025 as much as I enjoyed typesetting it.

I discovered Björk’s music in 2007, when Volta dropped. I was struck by the vitality of her voice, the clarity of her message, and the ferocity of the production in “Declare Independence.” I enjoyed the eccentric qualities in her avant-garde direction, but I didn’t fully comprehend her artistic vision. She was already way ahead of her time.

In recent weeks, I decided to revisit her studio catalog starting with her 1993 Début and ending with her 2022 Fossora. Björk had meticulously crafted each album to be experienced as a whole. Each album took me on a journey filled with wild imagination, lush orchestration, and pure emotion.

As I immersed myself into her recordings, I wished someone had written a book on Björk’s music and life based on her studio albums. Until then, I would like to put together a website based on reviews of her albums. I read as many essays as I could find and selected the ones that I liked the best.

I made this website for my own reading pleasure, but I also hoped that these essays would open up to anyone who has not discovered the genius of Björk. I wanted the look and feel of the website to be modern; therefore, I set the text in NaN Jaune—a contemporary sans-serif type family, designed by Jérémy Landes. The quirkiness quality in NaN Jaune is a perfect match for Björk’s style. Even though the design is playful, the focus is still on readability.

Enjoy reading!