For the past three weeks Dana and I had worked tirelessly well past midnight to launch our collaborative online jewelry store: Simplexpression.com. While she handcrafted and took photographed each piece, I touched up the images and put the web site together.

With Simplexpression, our goal is to create simple, elegant jewelries that are not only visually attractive, but also comfortable to wear on a daily basis. To reflect on our products, we wanted a clean, classy site with ease of use. The layout lets the products speak for themselves. We also integrated PayPal to handle our transactions for a smooth, secured experience.

Dana is obviously the creative mind behind the works. I am not sure how she comes up with the design, but she always strikes the perfect balance between shapes, colors, tones and textures while still manages to keep the piece simple. The labor goes into each piece is intensive, yet the final product is just stunning.

One of the fun tasks of the project is to come up with the name for each piece. We listen mostly to jazz in our design process. So we figure why not name them after the jazz ladies. All we have to do is matching up each piece with a female jazz artist based on her style and personality. For example, we honored this necklace after Billie Holiday because it shows Billie’s dramatic lifestyle. She was like the brilliant, orange centerpiece that still lid up inside the ring of darkness. We named this piece after Anita O’Day because its rhythm and its flow correspond to her dazzled sense of time and improvising virtuosity.

What makes this project so special to us is that we get to put our skills together as a couple even though we have different career paths. Because this project is a result of love and passion, we make our products affordable so that we could share them with you and hope that you would take pleasure in wearing them as much as we do in crafting them. So head over to Simplexpression.com and check out our small but expanding collection.

The special slideshow dedicated to the children of Agent Orange is finally released. The project, motivated by Dana to help raise awareness of the affects and donation for the victims, actually started back in July but was on hold due to the lack of imageries.

Although Justin Maxon was kind enough to allow me to use his photos, I didn’t have enough to complete the whole song. So I decided to work with what I have. The good thing about working with limitation is that I have to be precise when choosing a musical track to convey the message.

After going through my collection, Thuy Tien’s soul-searching rendition of Trinh Cong Son’s “Xin Cho Toi” stood out. The solo piano accompanying the painful but hopeful vocals sets the right tone for the photos. The lyrics of the entire song do not fit with content, but one particular part is spot on, so I decided just to use that segment.

Even though the clip is short, I am satisfied with the result. It’s concise and straight to the point. The music, the lyrics and the photos fit well together to bring out the message.

I was given an opportunity to redesign tledc.com, Theresa Le’s jewelry designs. Theresa is a good friend who I have met over several bun mam occasions and she gave me complete freedom to rework her site. The only instruction she gave me was to keep it simple and sleek.

After browsing through her extensive gallery, I decided to incorporate her jewelry works into the layout. On the homepage, I wanted to let her artwork speak for itself, and it does so clear and bold against black background. On the secondary pages, I wanted to switch the layout to white for readability and accessibility. I revamped the entire gallery and made it much simpler to navigate. Customers don’t have to click through pages and pages to browse the collection. Everything in on one page and if you want to see the larger photo, you can do so without leaving the page. As of now, Theresa has not added e-commerce feature to her site and she still prefers the good old mailing payment. I have pushed her to go with PayPal, so hopefully we will see that in the near future.

The entire site is structured in XHML and styled in CSS. I kept the markup clean and simple so that Theresa could update the site herself. I also gave her logo a new, refreshing look. The type is set in lowercase with various colors.

So go ahead and take a tour at tledc.com and buy some jewelry before they are gone. As you see, she has sold quite a bit of them. Make sure you read the about page too. I love the way she describes her design process:

I don’t always know the name of the stones. I identify them by their beauty and character. Each stone is unique in its own way, and each is a piece of art. I take my time feeling them with my fingers, my mind filled with images of where they’ve been and how their paths and adventures had brought them into my hands. Sometimes I stare at a rock for hours seeing designs and possibilities. It takes a long time for me to work through each piece, savoring that wonderful feeling of creating something unique. I’m really just bringing out their natural beauty and I make a point to keep my pieces simple and elegant.

Isn’t that beautiful? Thanks Theresa for allowing me to redesign tledc.com. It was quite a pleasure project to work on.

Although I am no longer working for Vassar, the web group keeps me on board for freelance projects. The redesign of the Art Department is my first work after Vassar. The department wants a clean and simple site and so it was delivered just the way it wanted.

While riding the bus to work yesterday, the idea struck. As soon as I arrived into my office, shot an email over to Ao Trang requesting for the photos from the 2008 calendar. Like always, the PR guy was very fast in responding to me (Thanks, you guys rock). The music has been on the back of my mind for quite a while now. I was just waiting for the right images. Without further to say, here is Tinh Hoai Huong.

The fresh new site for the Office for Fellowships and Preprofessioanl Advising kicks off my first design for 2008, but also marks my last work for Vassar. I hope there will be room for freelance project in the future.

The new design for Vassar College Department of Music has rolled out earlier than intended schedule due to the first live webcast of Vassar College Choir on Friday. In addition to designing the look and feel, I had a chance to work on a real project with Cascade Server (Vassar’s newly implemented CMS). My colleague Megg Brown has been a tremendous help with the CMS as well as in making the site possible to go live.

Individuality is part of Vassar’s identity. We pride ourselves in being unique; therefore, our public face (the homepage) displayed its distinctiveness almost every day. (You can still browse through the collection of banners I have created since my first day at Vassar in the department of graphics). Even though we still love our previous approach, and I will miss designing those banners, we need to step up our game. The challenge is how to top ourselves by moving forward and still keep what we love.

With that kind of challenge, it takes a dedicated team to tackle. Through thorough research (which includes looking at hundreds of colleges’ homepage), careful evaluation, and endless discussion, we came up with a solid design that would give us flexibilities and still be able to remain unique. In other words, we based our design around a central location, which housed easy-to-access information. As long as we keep the essential element in the same position, the sky is the limit.

As part of the team, my main responsibility is designing the layout, and one of the things that still strike me the most about Vassar is the beautiful campus from outside landscapes to inside architectures. Instead of just showing small, quick-to-load photo, I want to make it big and part of the design. On the new site, I used a detailed shot of the Students’ Building to give a vibe of the place where students gathered for lectures, parties, or just to chill out. But using a beauty shot is just one approach. A wide range of styles will be revealed as we move into this new direction.

So what has been changed? We don’t get to design banners on a daily basis anymore, but we get to focus more on the entire web page. So without further delay, allow me to introduce to you our new homepage, and you could read the official statement about our new design. We also revamped the secondary pages for a crisp, clean and simple look and feel. My kudos goes out to the web team. It was an amazing experience working with a group of talented individuals who had brought their expertise to the table. You guys rock!

My latest design for the Vassar Farm, a concise, informational site, just went live. I am glad they let me kept the little girl. Isn’t she adorable?

I’ve also been working with the web team to redesign the Vassar homepage, which should launch at the end of the month. It’s going to be mad wicked!

In order to get the Web site realign and ready for the Class of 2007 Commencement, I was assigned to work with my colleague Tim Brown, and it turned out to be a great collaborative effort. I worked with Tim before, but never on a one-on-one partnership like this.

Our challenge was to meet the tight deadline, which was a week. So we had to work together off the same site on the same server and at the same time without overwriting each other’s work. To do so, we not only had divided up the pages, but also alternated our tasks. So if he worked on CSS, I worked on HTML and we switched up like a tag team.

As a result, we were able to accomplish our goal within three days. The new site is now easier to use as well as cleaner in codes. The content is much more organized and the visual layout is a bit enhanced. I am so glad that our boss had paired us up for this project. The experience was so effective that I am looking forward for more collaboration in the near future. You’re the man, Tim!