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!

While I designed The Office of International Services Web site from scratch, Kevin gives The Office of International Programs a whole fresh new look.

The Learning and Teaching Center gets a brand new makeover. They wanted a site that is clean, hip, and fresh with some of the elements from Dean of Freshmen (also designed by yours truly). See if you could spot the designer in the photo. Enjoy the beautiful weekend, folks!

The redesign of Campus Life Office has just rolled off my G5. Fresh and clean is the key.

The spanking new Dean of Freshmen is now live. I chose upbeat colors to make it fresh for the freshmen, but the clean and elegance were also considered for the parents. In addition, I have used the photo on the homepage in a different direction. I originally had the photo appeared at the top, but its large size took up too much space above the fold. I didn’t want to reduce the graphic either because it would lose the effect was I was going for. As a result, I incorporated the image into the whole design by placing the attractive visual at the bottom. It’s a reward for those who scroll.

Vassar’s Department of Dance is reinvigorated with the power of minimalism. After assigned with the project, I went through the photo collection and awed by the dancers’ motion. I selected a few striking shots, knocked out the background, and laid out the homepage in an hour. The director of web development (my boss) once asked me, “How do you design so fast and still churn out quality works?” My reply was, “I know when to stop.” Through my experience, I find that the more I refine a design, the worse it gets. And in my refinement process, I tend to throw in more unnecessary elements; therefore, I just stop and trust my instincts when I feel I have accomplished my goal.

On the homepage, I wanted to showcase the strength and liveliness of the dance program. Flash was used to pull up random images and for the transitions to give a sense of rhythm. The dark grey background was chosen to increase the dramatic of the body movements. In the interior pages, I wanted to maintain the strong visual by incorporate images with type in the header but also allowing readability by turning the background to white.

I took a different approach on this project by coming up with the design before knowing what the clients (department’s represented faculties) have in mind. So in our initial meeting, I presented my design and their jaws dropped. They were pleased with the design as much as I do; therefore, the project flew through smoothly. The only section I haven’t been able to touch on is VRDT because other urgent priorities took over. Still, I am happy with the outcome.

Vassar’s Music Library has relaunched. I can’t take the credit for the entire design concept because the project was handed to me from a former designer. However, I revamped most of the visual elements and arrangements including the background graphical treatment, and coded the site. I also streamlined the navigation and reorganized the structure in order to “eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Hans Hofmann.

By the way, don’t forget to drop by the graphics department to check out some of the recent banners I’ve done for 2006.

Last year the creative folks at Ao Trang contracted me to do a Flash presentation to showcase their white-dress photography. I browsed through the collection and was impressed with the aesthetic visual Hoai Nam has captured, especially with the focus on the sensuous body’s form. The silky-smooth ao dai flows like streams of poetry around the curvaceous figures. What sets Ao Trang’s work apart is how the simple, plain and traditional ao dai could produce such a pure, expressive and modern Vietnamese’s beauty.

Although I couldn’t take on a freelance work at that time, I always had the project in the back of my mind. So when the time is right, I contacted Ao Trang’s staff for the photos and offered a collaborative effort instead of a business deal so that we both hit the same goal, to display Vietnamese white-dress—one of our essential, cultural costumes.

After sorting through the exquisite set of photos, I needed a song that has both traditional and contemporary vibes in order to support the graphics. Went through my extensive collection and the track that jumps out at me is Thuy Tien’s “A Oi” from her Ngot & Dang album. The fusion of Vietnamese folk poetry and ambient futuristic sound, which gave the song an organic, eccentric flavor, is exactly what I was looking for. Thuy Tien’s idiosyncratic delivery added a rich, lyrical texture to the images. The end result is quite interesting.

With no further introduction, Visualgui.com and AoTrang.com are proud to present our jointed project: “Ao Dai Trang A Oi.”