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.

This blog is having an identity crisis. I changed the wordmark once again.

I am still using DJR’s Megazoid, but I am not doing any customization. I am playing around with the shade. I am taking it back to the old school. Since I made the logo filling up the browser, I had to remove the big hero typography at the top. I brought it to thee bottom instead. Now I have both big top and bottom.

It’s nice to have a personal blog I can play with the design. I don’t have to take the branding too seriously. I am digging this direction for now, but I can change it tomorrow, next month, or next year. We’ll see how it goes.

While driving and listening to Donny Trương Presents Việtjazz, I came up with a sample for Vietnamese Typography. I picked out my 10 favorite pieces from my collection. Each song gets a typographic treatment. I also paired each song with a painting from the late great Đinh Cường. Link to each song is included on the artwork for your enjoyment. Take a look.

A versatile Neo-Grotesque type family, Macan, TIGHTYPE, balances utility and vivacity. While Macan focuses on functionality, Macan Stencil brings quirky quality to the family. Both solid and stencil versions support Vietnamese. Its acute, grave, and hook above stack to the right of its circumflex. I had the pleasure of reviewing Vietnamese diacritics for Macan. Check out the Macan Vietnamese specimen.

As you can see, the Visualgui wordmark gets a bit of an update. If you are reading this post in an RSS reader, make sure you visit my website. I still use David Jonathan Ross’s Megazoid as a starting point, but I modified the letters quite a bit. I was experimenting with connecting two letters together—like ligatures. Because of Megazoid’s geometric shapes, the letters fit together in an interesting way.

What is Visualgui anyway? Almost twenty years ago, I came up with the name because I loved the sound of the word “visual”. I was also starting out with visual design. GUI obviously stands for graphical user interface. It also means “gui” with the short i instead of the long y because I am short gui.

I must confess, I find Visualgui to be silly and sometimes embarrassing even to this day. I have thought of changing it, but it has stuck with me for so long, I might as well embrace it. Ever since I got the name, I struggled with creating my own wordmark. I was never satisfied with what I came up with. The previous version, which was set in Fit, also designed by David Jonathan Ross, was the longest I had used.

After five years, however, I wanted to make a change. The earlier version of the new wordmark was straightforward. The only modification was creating the lower a from the uppercase G. With the revision, I modified every letter.

I am loving the new wordmark. I hope you like it too. If you have any feedback, please drop me an email. I also sincerely hope that David doesn’t mind me modifying his typeface to make a somewhat unique brand for myself.