I discovered striking covers of Phạm Duy’s songbooks on Phạm Duy’s website. The illustrations are beautiful, but I am drawn into the custom typesetting with Vietnamese diacritics. I have to create a sample page to feature the covers. Of course, I have to add some text to the page as well. I selected Eric Henry’s “Phạm Duy and Modern Vietnamese History,” which was written in English with proper diacritical marks for Vietnamese words. For reading text, I chose Be Vietnam Pro, designed by Lâm Bảo, Tony Lê, and Nguyễn Việt Anh. Check out Phạm Duy music typography.

Back in 2002, Mr. Patrick X. Gallagher gifted me his handmade book, which consisted of his English lyrics to 50 Vietnamese popular songs. After discovering Mr. Gallagher’s passing in 2019, I wanted to pay a tiny tribute to him. In this sample, I selected 11 songs written by the renowned lyricist Dương Thụ with translations by Mr. Gallagher. The text is set in Warbler, designed by David Jonathan Ross. Take a look at the “Dương Thụ & Patrick X. Gallagher” sample page.

I revised “Liên Đoàn Hùng Vương: Scouting Songbook.” The previous version featured a photo of all the Cubs wearing mask, which seems outdated. In addition, I didn’t quite like the previous design. I still use Bree, designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione, but I switched to gray text on white background instead of white text on dark blue background. Last but not least, I included English songs to complete the songbook.

The philosophy of Buddhism has always intrigued me. In this example, I put together “The Fourteen Teachings of the Buddha” and “The Ten Commandments of Mindfulness” in Vietnamese and English translations, by Tâm Lạc Trần Quý Anh. The text is set in Atlante, by Yorlmar Campos and Martín Sesto. Take a look at Buddhism, a new sample page.

Crafting sample pages has become my favorite design exercise. I get the opportunity to set the typefaces with Vietnamese diacritics—some of them I advised. I get to choose the projects I like to work on. I get to decide how much time I want to spend. I don’t need anyone’s approval. I try to provide both Vietnamese and English when possible. The samples have become my personal collection of Vietnamese culture and literature. I want to share them with the world, but they are there for me to refer back or to read. I want the materials to be meaningful instead of just dummy texts. I have two more samples I want to do. I just need the time. Stay tuned.

To comply with New York Times style, Vietnamese diacritical marks were removed in Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s “Read Your Way Through Hà Nội.” Ms. Nguyễn noted:

Note: The Vietnamese words in the original version of this essay used diacritical marks. To comply with New York Times style, the marks were removed before publication.

Unfortunately, this practice alters the meaning of the words. In the case of Hỏa Lò Prison, for example, “hỏa” means “fire,” and “lò” means “furnace”: the Burning Furnace Prison. Without the marks, “hoa” means “flowers,” and “lo” means “worry,” rendering the term “Hoa Lo” meaningless. I look forward to the day when The Times and other Western publications celebrate the richness and complexity of Vietnamese, and of all other languages, by showcasing them in their original formats.

To make the text more accessible to Vietnamese readers, I put together a sample article of Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s essay with diacritical marks included. The sampled article is typeset in Kaius, designed by Lisa Fischbach, and Job Clarendon, designed by David Jonathan Ross and Bethany Heck. I also enhanced Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Hà Nội reading list with beautiful book covers.

Donny Trương, my professional portfolio site, has been re-typeset in Case, designed by Erik Spiekermann, Anja Meiners, and Ralph du Carrois. Case is a sans serif superfamily that supports Vietnamese, in which I played a small role. Taking advantage of its variable fonts, I set Case in big headers, Case Text for body copy, and Case Micro for user interface. I also revised the intro to load different text every time someone visits the the homepage. I am just trying to keep it fresh. Take a look.

Fontwerk expands its superfamily, Case, designed by Erik Spiekermann, Anja Meiners, and Ralph du Carrois, from 32 to 72 fonts. Case also supports Vietnamese. It was my pleasure advising the designers on Vietnamese diacritics. Read about Case.

I have a subtle and not-so-subtle changes to the blog. For typographic, I added IntelOne Mono, designed by Fred Shallcrass, into the mix for coding examples and meta text (date and category).

For the not-so-subtle change, I added Google Adsense. As much as I despise running ads, I need to cover the hosting cost to run this blog. The ads turned out to fit well with my design. I had always used the spot right below my logo for promotions, but I didn’t always have something to promote. Now it is a perfect spot for ads.

I wish I have other ways to pull in some revenue stream for this blog, but I don’t. I experimented with Amazon Affiliate, but it didn’t worth the effort. I don’t know how much I will get from Adsense, but I want to experiment with it for a few weeks. The ads don’t seem to distract from the reading experience. In fact, the ads look quite nice with the design on larger screens.

I have been struggling to come up with a wordmark for simplexpression. Choosing the typeface and designing the wordmark aren’t as simple as I had expected. I have been working and thinking about it for a while. This morning, Mireille, designed by Anita Jürgeleit, suddenly came to mind. I immediately licensed it, but I purchased the web format instead of an OpenType or TrueType format. Instead of using Illustrator, I created the wordmark in CSS. My wife, the true talent behind simplexpression approved it. I hope it will inspire her to create new pieces. Take a look at the new simplexpression wordmark.

As I was reading Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Dust Child, I made note of all the Vietnamese proverbs sprinkled throughout the novel so I could put together a Vietnamese typographic sample. For the design of the page, I wanted to use sticky notes to highlight the proverbs. To complement the sticky note concept, I set the proverbs in marker-style Shantell Sans, designed by Shantell Martin, Stephen Nixon, and Anya Danilova. The header and footer are set in Aneto, designed by Veronika Burian, José Scaglione, Azza Alameddine, and Roxane Gataud. Take a look and enjoy.