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!

As Director of Design and Web Services at Antonin Scalia Law School, I led the site redesign and the migration to the new content management system from start to launch and beyond. Read more about my contribution in the school redesign and migration project.

Thang Máy Sài Gòn is an investigative fiction written in Vietnamese by Thuận and translated into English by Nguyễn An Lý—Elevator in Sài Gòn. I enjoyed reading it so much that I wanted to create a sample page with both the original Vietnamese version and the English translation. I selected the juiciest chapter, in which the translator went beyond the detail from the original text. The sample page is typeset in Nan Rage superfamily, designed by Hugues Gentile, Fanny Hamelin, Fadhl Haqq, Léon Hugues, Jean-Baptiste Morizot, Luke Prowse, Florian Runge, Jolana Sýkorová. Read the sample chapter.

I have been obsessed with Greg Tate’s music criticism since the early 2000s, when I got interested in blogging about music. I can’t remember how I discovered Tate’s writing, but I had a binder full of his essays I printed out from the internet so I could read and reread them.

Tate had a distinctive style of writing and a voice of his own. He went beyond music and pushed as far as he could on the page. I pored over his Village Voice archive as well as his works at various publications, including Rolling Stone, Vibe, Spin, the Wire, and Downbeat. I devoured Flyboy in the Buttermilk again and again. I also savored Flyboy 2 and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience.

Even though I didn’t know Tate personally, I was shocked and disheartened when I found out that he passed away on December 7, 2021. Since then I wanted to turn my binder into a tribute website, not only for me to read but for others to enjoy his writing.

By Greg Tate is a straightforward website with the focus on accessibility, readability, usability, and delivery. There are no ads, no trackings, and no third-party scripts. Typography is the priority. NaN Serf, designed Daria Cohen, Fadhl Haqq, Léon Hugues, Jean-Baptiste Morizot, Luke Prowse, and Florian Runge, was selected for its easy-to-read qualities and its striking display characters. NaN Serf Sans was chosen to complement its sibling and to handle complementary text. A full-width photo accompanies each essay for some visual enhancements.

This site is my unofficial tribute to the critic whose writing had inspired me. His legacy lives on. Thank you and rest in peace, Greg Tate.

Read essays written by Greg Tate.

For book design, the rule for setting a typical book is one to three typefaces. I broke this rule with Vietnamese Typography. Then again, Vietnamese Typography is not a typical book. Unlike a traditional book, my web book continues to be updated with new materials and expanded with new typefaces. Until the past weekend, I haven’t thought of keeping track of how many typefaces are used in the book.

Since all of the fonts on Vietnamese Typography are hosted on the server, I can easily audit the number of the font files. The site uses both static and variable fonts, however, it would be a daunting task to count the number of fonts. On the other hand, the number of typefaces are easier to figure out.

As of today, April 7, 2025, Vietnamese Typography uses 100 typefaces. Since the second edition of this book, the main text is set in Fern, designed by David Jonathan Ross. Headers and captions are set in Adapter, designed by William Montrose and Sláva Jevčinová. Those are the two typefaces that remain constant. Everything else changes.

For the title on the cover, I expand the random pool when I come across a nice display typeface. For type recommendations, I add a new text face when I can license it. For typographic samples, I use both commercial and open source typefaces. Here’s the list of typefaces being used on Vietnamese Typography:

1. Adapter
2. Adelle Sans
3. Albula Pro
4. Alright
5. Amica Pro
6. Aneto
7. Anton
8. Atlante
9. Bahianita
10. Ballinger
11. Be Vietnam Pro
12. Bild
13. Bona Nova
14. Bradley DJR
15. Bree
16. Bricolage Grotesque
17. Bungee
18. Cabin
19. Calistoga
20. Canicule
21. Captura Now
22. Case
23. Change
24. Clavichord
25. Club Lithographer
26. Cormorant
27. Cosima
28. Crayonette DJR
29. Dattilo DJR
30. Loes
31. Ebony
32. Euchre
33. Every
34. Exchange
35. Extraordinaire
36. Fern
37. Fit
38. Fjalla One
39. Forma DJR
40. Fragen
41. Frequenz
42. Fruktur
43. Gimlet Sans
44. Glyptic DJR
45. Halyard
46. Harriet
47. Horizona
48. Herbik
49. Imbue
50. Job Clarendon
51. Kaius
52. Klooster
53. Kukka
54. Kyrios
55. Lang
56. Lautsprecher DJR
57. Lavishe
58. League Gothic
59. Lentiform
60. Loretta
61. Macan
62. Map Roman
63. Mea Culpa
64. Megabase
65. Megascope
66. Megavolt
67. Megazoid
68. Montagu Slab
69. Name Sans
70. Neue DIN
71. Nickel Gothic
72. Oi
73. Ottavio
74. Output Sans
75. Pangea
76. Phudu
77. Platypi
78. Playpen Sans
79. Playwrite VN
80. Pliego
81. Polliwog
82. Poltawski Nowy
83. Portada
84. Queens
85. Rhody
86. Roslindale
87. Rumpus
88. Schotis
89. Sequenz
90. Shantell Sans
91. Skolar
92. Skolar Sans
93. Soprano
94. Texturina
95. Thow
96. Tortellini
97. Truculenta
98. Warbler
99. Water Brush
100. Xunga

It’s just a coincidence that Vietnamese Typography is using 100 typefaces. It’s definitely worth celebrating, but the site will continue to expand. Keep an eye out.