Greg Tate:

Once during an interview with Wynton Marsalis he asked me what quantifiable musical relationship I could conceivably hear between jazz and hiphop. My first answer, besides the obvious rhythmic one, was the timbre and tonality of the voices, the male voices in particular. Even Wynton didn’t find anything to argue with in that. Developing that idea even further I’d say the great MCs of hiphop and the great players in jazz share the characteristic of having unmistakable tones, tones one can identify in sometimes one or two notes, and certainly within 8 bars. The sonic, rhythmic, lyrical organization of ideas of Trane, Wayne and Joe Henderson are immediately distinguishable to the serious listener from those of Ornette, Dolphy, and David Murray—as those of Biggie, Rakim and Chuck D are distinguishable fron the flows of Q Tip, Ghostface Killa, and Trick Daddy.

Alex W. White’s Thinking in Type is a concise, informative book on the practice of typography. Unfortunately, the design of the book itself is quite distracting with crammed examples. What’s the deal with square-triangle bullets throughout the book? White ought to focus on the content of the book and let someone else handle the design.

A brief, smart introduction to graphic design from the one and only Chip Kidd. The book is beautiful, filled with great examples and set in large Century Schoolbook. Go is a perfect gift to kids from 10 and above. Even if they are not interested in becoming a graphic designer, “it doesn’t hurt to know what its components are and how they work.”

iLoveNgocLan.com received over 100 original copies of Ta Say, a collaboration with Duy Quang before Ngọc Lan stopped recording due to her illness. If you want to purchase the album and to support Ngọc Lan’s Charity Fund, email us at [email protected]. More info in Vietnamese here.

Dan: Daddy, what [are] you doing?
Dad: Sleeping.
Dan: I’m sleeping too.
Dad: You’re so cute.
Dan: No, I’m not cute. I’m a baby!

With Dao

Dad: Your pee pee is yellow.
Dao: Because I drink a lot of orange juice.
Dad: What does Dan’s poop smell like? (Changing Dan’s diaper)
Dao: Gym socks.

Last night after giving Dan a bath and trying to put a diaper on him, he pointed to his thing and said, “My tadpole.” I was shocked. I had to ask him again to make sure if I heard him correctly, “Your what?” He replied, “My tadpole.” I do not know where he got that from, but I thought it was quite imaginative.

At bedtime, Dao picked up a Dr. Seuss’s book and said, “Can we read this book. It’s my favorite book called Close Your Eyes When You Read.” When he handed the book to me and the actual title is I Can Read With My Eyes Shut.

Being a parent is such a challenge. I didn’t expect it to be so stressful. I had no idea what I got myself into. I am not a good or a perfect parent. I still don’t have a clue what I am doing, but I am glad and thankful for to be a father.

When Dao turned terrible two, I was being very uptight with him. I didn’t want him to be disobedient. I didn’t want him to embarrass me. I didn’t want him to push me to the edge. I failed all three. There were times I just didn’t know what to do with him. I would let him scratched me, screamed or threw whatever tantrum. I was just being unresponsive. My only solution was that he would grow out of it and I am so glad that he had. He is much more reasonable and he’s no longer jealous of his little brother, expect for when they fought over toys. He’s being a really good brother. Dan picked up his speaking skills from interacting with his other brother.

Now that Dan is in his terrible-two state and he is much tougher than Dao, but he is not like Dao used to be. For my part, I am taking on a more relaxing approach. Because they can now play together, I let them enjoy themselves and just keep an eye on them from a distance. If they break into a fight, I could see who started the trouble. Again I don’t claim to be a good father and I am usually shy away from that compliment. I am just doing the best I can.

This mock interview is an assignment for my graduate course on professional design practices.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Jim Van Meer who is a creative services manager at the American Petroleum Institute (API) for a web design position. Even though I prepared a portfolio presentation to showcase my expertise in responsive web design, I didn’t talk about my work. Mr. Van Meer had something else in mind.

Right off the bat, he asked me whether I would be the survival of the fittest or the survival of the cooperative. I answered the latter. I do the best work in a team environment and I provided an example of how I collaborated with the talented designers and developers at Vassar college to not only meet deadlines, but also used the best individual skills for the job.

One of the most intriguing questions he asked me was on standards and how I would present complex information in a simple manor. Without much time to think, I gave an example of web standards. I often had to explain to clients, supervisors and novice web designers the important of web standards. My analogy to help them understand web standards was the example of a dishwasher. Let’s say that your dishwasher broke and you need a replacement. A standard size would allow you to pick out a new dishwasher without worrying if it would fit in your kitchen. If you design your site with web standards, you’ll make your life easier as well as those whose responsible for maintaining the site that you designed.

The last question he asked me was why manhole covers are rounded. I knew that the rounded shape would prevent the covers from dropping into the hole, but I couldn’t articulate the reasons for it. Sometimes when I think hard about a logical reason, I get blank out.

When it was my turn for questions, I asked Mr. Van Meer what he enjoyed most working here and he replied the trust the boss gave him, the flexibility as well as the creative freedom. In term of digital products and services, Mr. Van Meer would like to see API to be 100% web base, which includes online training, various devices and apps, in the next two years. The skillsets that Mr. Van Meer is looking to fill with a new hire are the ability to design and turning designs into web, app and digital medium.

After our interview, Mr. Van Meer explained that the questions he asked were to get to know the candidate. He wanted to see the candidate’s quick reaction as well as his ability to work in a creative yet demanding environment. The reason he didn’t want me to present my portfolio was that he already knew what I was capable of doing through my web site and portfolio. He said, “If I didn’t think you could do what we were looking for, I wouldn’t bring you in for an interview.”

I had learn a great deal through our interview and I hope I did well.

For the second assignment in professional design practices, I rewrote my entire resume, particularly the descriptions in the experience section. I also focused on the typographic details and settled on two typefaces: Lora and Lato.

For the work portion, I broke down into two separate pages. The work landing page now featured only eight selected projects. I don’t want to overwhelm visitors with everything I have done. The full list page has all the projects I have worked on. This page is more for me than for visitors, but it is available for the public if anyone is interested in the exhausted list.

I also moved some of my past work to Pinterest. Here are the boards: Graphic Design Portfolio, Visualgui past designs, Vassar homepage banner archive and Vassar homepage archive.

Two weeks ago (Feb. 17, 2o14), my Sienna windshield cracked. I called my insurance and the representative connected me with Perfection Glass, which is one of its vendor. We set up the next day for the replacement. The technician was supposed to call me in the morning to tell me what time he would come out.

The next day I heard nothing. Around 3 PM, I called Perfection Glass and the sale rep didn’t seem to have my record on file. After ten minutes verifying my info, she told me that they were waiting for the seal to arrive and they wouldn’t be able to come out in another three days. Why didn’t she called to let me know and let me waited a whole day? She didn’t know and didn’t seem to care.

On Feb. 20, 2014, I called the company in the morning to make sure that someone could come out. My wife was at home and a technician did come out to replace the glass. From what she told me, the technician seemed like a nice guy. The only problem was that there was a scratch on the glass and they made a deal to come back to replace a new one last Thursday.

He called me on the day it was rescheduled, but he never came and never called me back. In the evening I called him and he apologized for being behind so we have to reschedule for yesterday. Unfortunately, the snow was heavy so I didn’t expect him to come out. Now I am not even sure when they’ll come again to replace the glass.

It was such a frustrating experience. One lesson learned: never go with what your insurance company recommend.

Yesterday I received the following email from General Assembly:

Hey,

Just saw that you’re interested in learning more about our Front-End Web Development program. My name is Daniel and I handle Admissions for the FEWD course at General Assembly in Washington, D.C.

I’d love to learn more about your goals and program expectations. When’s a good time for a quick chat?

Cheers,
D

Then I realized that I was about a week ago, I was Googling for some front-end web development training in D.C. I know Google tracks me and all, but sharing my info to a third party is a bit too far. General Assembly has appeared in my Facebook feed as well. I guess this is the price I have to bay for using the Internet.