Almost two years in production, the new Infosite finally comes to life. Although I have contributed the look and feel (all three themes currently available), the harder parts belong to my colleagues. Megg Brown has done an incredible job of hammering out the backend development while Tim Brown comes on board and nails down the CSS segments. Glad to see the site is redesigned!

Susan Stein Shiva Theater is a small project that was passed on to me from Jacob Moses who is a student at Vassar; therefore, he deserves the credit for creating the logo. Since he did a great job, I just built a simple and straightforward layout based on his design. Although we don’t work directly with each other, it is still a collaborated effort.

Arts at Vassar and Palmer Gallery are two new featured mini-sites design.

The new Jewish Studies site has been re-launched with a fresh new face, XHTML markups, and CSS driven.

The design was challenging because I had no images to work with; therefore, I had to rely on typography to communicate the edgy look and feel that the program wanted to convey. I spent tremendous amount of time on playing with different type treatments. Thanks to the fascinating shapes of Hebrew letters, I was able to incorporate them into the navigation. I also wanted to give the site a sense of liveliness by providing a set of colors that are warm and elegant.

The redesigning of Jewish Studies website was a great learning experience. Though the process was much more than what I had expected, it was worth invested because the result is pleasing to both the client and myself.

Update:
The compliment below is from Jeffrey Kosmacher, Director of Media Relations at Vassar. I am sharing his words because he touches on the main points that I wanted to communicate with the Jewish Studies site. Thanks Jeff!

Donny,

I love your colorful and elegant use of the Hebrew alphabet, surely the most universal aspect of Judaism. It was also very clever how you tied together each key English word on the page to a corresponding Hebrew letter. For those of you who don’t read Hebrew, the sound each of those Hebrew letters makes corresponds to the first sound of the English word Donny connected them to.

There is one exception, because no one letter in Hebrew makes the “j” sound, but the design has a great solution: it uses the first letter in the Hebrew word for Jew/Jewish.

Mazel tov (couldn’t resist),

Jeff

Inspired by the aesthetic beauty of Vassar, this particular motion piece is filled with wonderful shots of its campus and students. Actually, I had this project in mind for a while but never get a chance to work on it until this past weekend and it only took me a few hours. I felt in love with the campus the first time I came for my job interview. Watch the slideshow and you’ll see why. Make sure to crank up your speakers. I don’t care if your boss is standing right next to you.

Disclaimer! Even though the piece is about Vassar, it has nothing to do with work. It’s only for my personal entertainment purpose but if you are considering going to Vassar, you might want to check it out. All images are used with permission from Vassar. Music produced by Tomoyasu Hotei, courtesy of IRc2 Corp. and Toshiba-EMI Ltd.

This is what you get when you put a group of creative minds together.

Design Inside is what we (designers of College Relations) have been picking out our brains for almost a year and sweating on for the past two weeks. It’s an exhibition showcases web sites, web banners, posters, brochures, books, magazines and other designs produced by the Office of College Relations. This is the image of the college. This is the art of communicating life at Vassar.

Design Inside was a learning experience for me since this is my first time working on an exhibition. It gave us an opportunity to collaborate and communicate closely between web and graphic designers. The best part was where each of our best skill was applied to the project. For example, Julia wrote our texts, George picked out the colors for the walls, Charlie designed the pedestals, Megg constructed a big sitemap, Chris created an interactive piece, and I used Flash for various banners display. As a result, everything comes together nicely.

If you don’t know, now you know.
Below is my brief biography written by Julia Van Devleder.

Donny Truong is a very visual guy, as you will see if you visit his personal website, VisualGUI.com. He’s apparently a punster, too, since G.U.I. also stands for Graphical User Interface.

Truong was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 12. He received his bachelor’s in Digital Arts and Multimedia Design at La Salle University in 2001, at which point the Office of College Relations scooped him right up.

Inspired by pure and elegant design, Truong says that “it’s sometimes not what you put in but what you take out…. I am obsessed with white space and breathing room.” Web designers often emphasize usability, and of course that’s important, Truong says. But he believes that aesthetically designed sites are easier to use than sites designed without attention to basic aesthetic principles.

In addition to his Vassar websites and his personal site, Truong designed and continues to develop iLoveNgocLan.com, a personal project to honor Ngoc Lan, a talented Vietnamese singer who has more than 600 songs to her credit. He also reads voraciously, watches movies, and writes reviews to hone his writing skills.

Actually? He ought to write restaurant reviews! Truong says he doesn’t cook, but he does eat. Check out his Blog for mouthwatering descriptions of some classic Vietnamese dishes.

Visualgui proudly presents the Annual Fund, our latest site design for Vassar College.

Nhu Mot Loi Chia Xa (Like The Word Good-bye) is my special dedication to a legendary songwriter with more than 600 songs under his credit. While singers produce albums to remember him, I create this Flash piece to pay my respect to the man who had inspired me with his music.

“Nhu Mot Loi Chia Tay” is performed by Tuan Ngoc from his 10 Tinh Khuc Trinh Cong Son album. With Tuan Ngoc’s amazing voice and Duy Cuong’s incredible musical arrangement, “Nhu Mot Loi Chia Tay” is perfect for this tribute. This is my word of goodbye to Trinh Cong Son. I hope you will enjoy it and always remember his name.

For those interested in the meaning of the lyrics, I have found an English translation by Nguyen Vu Thanh.

Like The Word Good-bye (I only used the second half of the song)

Want a time to thank the life
which gives me passion.
Several times lie down, hear laughs
but it’s just dreaming.

Love’s like light, quickly sets at evening
love’s not far but not really near.
Love’s like rock with an endless longing
love is vague, why are we sad

Recalling every night’s whispering
it seems like drunkenness.
A yellow thin flower’s on the horizon
like the word good-bye.

There’s a rose of olden days
dropping next to my life.
A dash of love shoots like a breeze
suddenly I recognize me.

Recalling every night’s whispering
it seems like drunkenness.
A yellow thin flower’s on the horizon
like the word good-bye.

Because of the invaluable feedbacks, I have reworked Tinh Khuc Buon. I focused mainly on Ngoc Lan’s eyes because they show so much sadness and emotion; the key elements I was looking for to convey the message behind the song.

I also reworked the Powerhouse intro to feature the stars – including Lucy Liu – that are coming this summer.

Although Visualgui refers to visual “GUY” and not “G.U.I.,” I wanted to give the Graphical User Interface look and feel as well. Good design is occassionally not what you put in but what you take out; therefore, I went back to the clean and minimal approach. I am obsessed with white space and breathing room.

On the technical aspect, I kept the structure the same. Thanks to CSS, transform existing content to the new design is a piece of cake. Image rollover is the only new addition to the site. I also upgraded to WordPress 1.2. I really like the new editing interface.

What is the motivation for the new redesign? Another Nancy’s Frozen Caramella, another new design. It must have crack in it or something. I am extremely addicted to it. I hate going to the mall but I have to drag my ass in there everyday just for the Frozen Caramella. If you think Starbuck’s Frapuccino is bad, Nancy’s joint is even worse. I finally get off Starweed and now I am picking up Nancy’s crack. Isn’t that horrible? I need to go into rehab or Nancy has to give me some discounts in order for me to stay on her crack. In fact she should give me free crack for advertising it. I can’t afford it anymore. $5.40 is way more than a pack of cigarettes. I don’t smoke but I think it would take a person at least an hour to smoke the whole pack of cigarettes. On the other hand, a large Frozen Caramella takes me less than 15 minutes to sip it all up. I have to get my crack on or else I’ll be shaking. Once I get it, design juice started to flow. As a result, the new Visualgui.com is rebirth.