Frutiger on Méridien (1957):

The most important thing about Méridien for me was its even rhythm. However, the overall impression wasn’t supposed to be rigid, but lively and organic and therefore reader-friendly.

Frutiger on Univers (1957):

Univers, however, would have been unthinkable without a constant width skeleton, it was only the concept of a systematic widths that made the many varieties possible.

Frutiger on Egyptienne (1958):

[Egyptienne’s] a useful text face, as the baseline is very good, distinctive and stable under any exposure.

Frutiger on Frutiger (1976):

My masterpiece is Univers, but my favourite typeface—if I’m being honest—is the original Frutiger.

Frutiger on Centennial (1986):

Centennial is one of my most professional typefaces; it was created on the back of 25 years’ experience of type design, with absolute logic—and feeling, naturally.

Frutiger on Avenir (1988):

Univers was a striking idea, as was Frutiger, but in Avenir there’s a harmony that’s much more subtle than in the others…My personality is stamped upon it.

• Responsive web design still came up many times at the conference.
• Many libraries are using WordPress for their web site.
• For its web site redesign project, the UNC library team is consisted of 4 web developers and 20 plus content contributors.
• The MacEvan library contracted out $50,000 to build an iOS app.
• The Cornell team for its library project is consisted of 6 UX designers, 9 web developers and a handful of contributors

I wish we have a team or a budget like the libraries mentioned above.

Presentation from Shari Thurow at Computer in Library 2014

Searchers on mobile

• Quick fact
• Location
• Personal information

What searchers expect

Use elevator as an example to guide users.

Usability tips for labeling

• Don’t put prompt text in text form. Leave form empty. Put help text underneath
• Provide the right contexts
• A label must be representative of a page and section content on a web website
• Page title is important for findability. Lead with most important word
• Name your image with context. Example: not logo.jpg, but mason-law-school-logo.jpg
• Don’t use gray for navigation.

Labeling system

• document (descriptive)
• navigation (concise)
• content (both)

Responsive Design

For responsive design on mobile, provide full desktop site. (I am not sure how to accomplish that since the whole point of responsive design is to adapt to different devices.

Recommended book

Mobile Speech and Advanced Natural Language Solutions

The third assignment for our graduate seminar was to integrate handmade type with a location. The environment can be private or public and any size. My initial concept was to create the word “Law” out of law books in the library, but the class didn’t seem impressed. So I changed the environment to my home office, in which I housed a dozen of books on typography. With the help of the books, I created the word TYPE out of matting board as a display on my table where I work. The project turned out well and the class liked the concept better.

The UNC team shared the process of redesigning the UNC’s library web site at the Computers in Libraries 2014. They set out their goals: discover, access, services, branding and device neutrality. They focused on the user’s wish list: search, hours, contact info, place to study, renew books. They chose WordPress as a platform. They had 40 people, including 4 developers and 20 plus content contributors, involved in the redesign projects. The most impressive accomplishments was reducing their contents from 10,182 HMTL pages to 250.

I ran the homepage to YSlow and it received a “D” for its performance. I took a look at the codes and the amount of CSS, JavaScripts and inline CSS are overwhelming. Sites like this showed that WordPress is getting as worse as Drupal. WordPress’s ease of use comes with a price. Slapping a responsive theme and throw more CSS on top isn’t the way to go. The UNC team didn’t seem to take performance into consideration for this project.

Tuần trước khi nhận được message của chị Quyên báo gia đình chị qua DC chơi, tôi vui vì có cơ hội gặp được người chị tôi kính mến từ lâu. Lúc xưa khi có vấn đề tình cảm, tôi thường thổ lộ trên blog thì chị gửi email đến động viên. Lúc mới làm cha tôi bỡ ngỡ những lúc con bệnh tôi viết trên blog và chị đã chia sẽ những kinh nghiệm đã từng trải. Từ những email đó tôi đã xem chị ấy như một người chị ở xa.

Thứ bảy vừa qua tuy gặp nhau lần đầu nhưng dường như tôi đã quen chị từ lâu. Hai cháu tôi cũng nhận ra qua hình ảnh tuy ngoài đời hai cháu đã lớn. Chồng chị cũng vui vẻ cởi mở. Hai gia đình coi như có duyên với nhau. Tôi và bà xã không giao thiệp rộng. Bà xã thì còn có vài người bạn từ đại học. Còn tôi thì chẵng còn liên lạc với bạn bè nào. Tôi thường trêu bà xã là hai đứa mình chẵng có gì giống nhau cả ngoài cái cô đơn. Thôi thì ngoài cái vợ chồng hai đưa mình làm bạn nhau luôn cho đỡ hiu quạnh.

Chiều đó tôi gặp gia đình chị Trâm và chị Nga, hai người bạn của chị Quyên. Hai ông chồng Mỹ cũng rất tử tế. Chúng tôi ngồi trò chuyện, lai rai vài chai bia và thưởng thức bánh xèo ba chị đã làm. Chị Trâm cũng ở Virginia nên chúng tôi sẽ có dịp qua lại thường xuyên. Mấy đứa con của chị cũng cở tuổi thằng Đạo và Đán nên tôi nó chơi với nhau.

Tuy chỉ gặp mặt vài tiếng đồng hồ nhưng đối với tôi thì rất quý báo. Vì tình bạn qua mạng vẫn có thể thân thiết.

Updated my Amazon Wish List because my birthday is coming up and just in case you want to give me some presents. All the books are on typography. I already own a handful of them. I guess I am trying to build my own little library on typography.

This morning Đán ran to me and cried, “Daddy, Đạo scratched me and pushed me.” Then he turned authoritative and ordered me, “Hit him.” I couldn’t help smiling, but told him that we don’t hit each other. We have to be nice to each other.

The weather is turning nice; therefore, Đán is allowed to play at the playground each morning. He hasn’t been crying for the past few days when I dropped him off. He’s eager to see his favorite teacher, Ms. Ali.

Đạo got in trouble again yesterday. His teacher complained that he didn’t want to share with his friend. They both fought over a car. His teacher told him to play with another car that is exactly the same, but he just wanted that particular car he was fighting for. When I asked him what happened and he told me that he had the car first.

At home he does the same thing with Đán. He wants whatever Đán has on his hand. It drives me crazy because they have tons of toys, but he only wanted that particular toy at the moment. I gave him timeout and explained to him that is not OK to do that, but it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Đán woke up in the morning, smiled and said, “Daddy địt.” I replied, “Đán địt.” He sounded a bit angry, “No, daddy địt.” I teased on, “No, Đán địt.” He got real mad, pointed at me and said, “No, I tell you. Daddy địt.” I responded, “OK, Daddy địt.” I did.

Yesterday with Đạo

Đạo played with his legos and pretended: “Bad guys going into Walmart.” I was curious to know: “Why do bad guys go to Walmart? They want to buy some toys?” He responded, “No, to take some money.” I was like, “What? Where did you learn that from?” He said, “From Eric.”

Đạo’s 5th birthday is coming up and he has been quite misbehaving at school. On Monday, he refused to return to class after being in the playground. He did fine on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I asked him what happened in class. He said that two of his friends called him “dirty head.” I said, “That’s not nice so what did you do?” He responded, “I punched them.” I was like, “Oh no. What hands are for?” He replied, “To hold hands and to eat food.” I said, “That’s good. Why didn’t tell your teachers what they said to you?” He responded, “I did.” I asked, “What did your teacher say?” He replied, “She said to tell my friends ‘no, thank you. I don’t like what you said.'” I said, “That’s good advice. Why didn’t you do that?” He said,” I don’t know.”

I made a deal with him that we would throw him a big birthday party for him if he would be a good boy from today to the 25th. Each day we would put a smiley face sticker on the calendar if he would be good in school. The school’s psychologist thinks that he’s acting up because he knows his birthday is coming up. She wanted to meet with us and his teachers again to discuss his behavior.

I have been following Eric’s blog on his daughter’s battling with brain cancer. Each update made my heart sank. Last night I was completely shattered when I read the latest post:

She had known ever since the tumors returned. She had expressed her fear in a few whispers, soothed by our reassurances that we were still looking for special medicine, and now she knew we were telling her she was going to die. She knew, and was terrified, curving her small body into a ball surrounding her pain as we tried to make a shield of our arms, futilely trying to protect her when the killer and the pain were already inside the shield. Inside her, where nobody could get it out. So our arms and bodies instead became a blanket inside which she could mourn her own life and try to cope with her terror of going away forever.