I am gathering sites that put the emphasis on reading experience. If you have any suggestion, please send them my way. Here are a few I have collected:

A List Apart

With its latest redesign, A List Apart dropped the sidebar and focused on the contents. The pairing of Franklin ITC Pro and Georgia Pro makes the reading experience so damn pleasurable. Unlike most sites with long articles, A List Apart is to be read on its own domain rather than through an RSS reader or Instapaper.

iA

Oliver Reichenstein doesn’t write often, but his articles are must-read when he does. “Learning to See” is one of my favorite reads on design. Furthermore, the blog section is crisp and beautiful with its own iABC typeface.

Mark Boulton

Mark Boulton’s blog is set in sensational slab serif Sentinel. The line-length and the leading are perfect for reading pleasure.

Medium

In addition to good contents, Medium puts emphasize on readability. The paring of JAF Bernini Sans and Freight Text Pro makes Medium a fantastic place to read on any device.

Rand in Repose

The pairing of Sentinel and Ideal Sans makes Michael Lopp’s blog gorgeous, legible and readable.

Stuff & Nonsense

Despite its closed aperture, slab serif Jubilat looks surprisingly good as body texts, especially at a very thin weight. Other than the line-length, which is a bit too long at full screen, the site looks delightful.

The Great Discontent

Get past the striking photos and you’ll get to read inspiring interviews of artists and designers from various creative industries. I am not too crazy about the thin Stratum as heading, but FF Meta Serif as body text isn’t so bad.

Trent Walton

This is one of my favorite art-directed blogs. Even though each post has a unique look and feel, the body text is anchored in FF Meta Serif Web Pro.

My new class was supposed to start today, but the inclement weather canceled it. The winter break went by so quick. I am excited about the classes, but also not looking forward to the late-night works. It’s going to be a busy schedule ahead.

During the winter break, I tried to squeeze in a freelance project, but didn’t happen. Met with the client/designer to go over the project before New Year. He was to send me mockups a week after that, but I still not received anything yet. I sent out reminders, but they didn’t help. I might have to cancel the project if nothing happens. I haven’t started working on the site yet. I also got out of a project after eight months on stall. I put a lot of work into it, but the client was not moving. After a few reminders and the latest one with no reply, I knew her heart was not in it.

With school, I need to clean up my calendar anyway, but I’ll be more picky if I will be taking on freelance gigs. The projects will have be worthwhile.

I Love Ngoc Lan has a new look. The major change is the hero banner. I want to move away from the fullscreen image and experiment with a more playful design. I had a vision of making a collage out of Ngoc Lan’s photograph and ended up incorporating them with flowers to match her name. Illustration is not my style, but I am pleased with the new design.

For typography, I stay with Open Sans. I wanted to use a serif typeface for reading texts, but couldn’t find a decent one with Vietnamese characters. Open Sans, a crisp and modern typeface, is legible and has full support for Vietnamese letters. I tightened up the body texts for better readability and unbolded the headings for a softer appeal.

I didn’t change the codes much except for some optimization in the markups. The content is still powered by WordPress and the layout is still responsive. CSS is now preprocessed with SASS for the ease of maintainability.

I Love Ngoc Lan turns 11 this year. Crazy how quick time passed by. I hope fans will enjoy the new design.

Thời nay muốn tìm người không có Facebook còn khó hơn những người có. Nhưng nhờ Facebook tôi biết được sinh hoạt của người thân, nhất là bà con ở Việt Nam. Bây giờ lớp cháu nó dùng Facebook khá nhiều.

Hôm nọ có một cô bé xinh xinh tên Thảo muốn làm bạn với tôi. Không biết là ai và chỉ biết nó có một số người bạn trong network của tôi. Thôi thì nhận lời vậy. Sau khi xem vài tấm hình con bé chụp với mẹ nó tôi nhận ra chị ấy là vợ của anh Hai tôi.

Tôi ít nhắc đến người anh cả này là vì giữa tôi và anh ấy sống hai thế giới khác nhau. Có lẻ vì anh em cùng cha khác mẹ nên không gần gủi. Vả lại anh ấy sống rất riêng tư. Lúc tôi còn ở Mỹ Tho thì anh đã lên Sài Gòn lập nghiệp. Cho đến nay anh em tôi gặp nhau không quá 20 lần.

Lúc xưa khi hè về anh thường gởi bé Thu (con của anh) xuống Mỹ Tho chơi vài tuần bên bà nội và thiếp 10 của tôi (bà cố nội và bà 10 của nó). Tôi còn nhớ đứa cháu này ngoan và dể thương. Nó cũng rất mến chú Doanh của nó. Lúc đó nó chắc 3 hoặc 4 tuổi còn tôi thì 7 hay 8 tuổi gì đó. Nó thích được tôi đẩy xe đồ chơi quanh nhà. Ôi những chuổi ngày đó làm sao quên được.

Càng khó quên hơn là một ngày trời mưa ba láy xe đưa tôi qua nội. Khi đến nơi thì thấy mọi người đều khóc. Ba tôi cũng khóc nhòa lên. Lúc đó tôi không biết rỏ chuyện gì. Thì ra bé Thu bị sốt xuất huyết và đã qua đời. Đó là lần đầu tiên tôi chứng kiến người thân của mình bị mất nhưng tôi không biết cảm giác đó ra sao. Tôi vẫn nhớ rỏ ngày đám tang của cháu và nơi chôn của cháu. Cho đến bây giờ tôi vẫn không quên được hình bống cháu.

Thảo là em Thu. Lúc bé chào đời thì tôi đã sang Mỹ. Thấm thoát mà đã 20 mấy năm. Bây giờ cháu đã trở thành một cô giáo dạy học. Thấy cháu bỏ lên cái video clip học trò lớp 6 của cháu nhảy nhót bài “The Fox” làm tôi nhớ đến tuổi ấu thơ của tôi. Lúc sang Mỹ tôi cũng mới lên lớp 6.

Thấy được cháu trưởng thành và chọn đường giáo viên tôi vui và hãnh diện. Nhìn hình cháu Thảo tôi bùi ngùi nhớ lại bé Thu. Nếu bé còn sống chắc bé cũng giỏi và thành công.

Is Thuở Ấy Có Jazz jazz? The album kicks off with a swing cover of Văn Phụng’s “Tôi Đi Giữa Hoàng Hôn.” Tuyết Loan sings the melody straight on. The rhythm section, made up of Vũ Trọng Hiếu (piano), Thanh Tân (guitar bass), Kiên Hoài (drum) and Hoàng Loan (guitar), comes out swinging and then switching to bossa nova for a novelty ending. Lê Tấn Quốc plays a brief saxophone solo on the break.

Throughout the record, Tuyết Loan who has a coarse contralto delivers well-loved ballads including “Cho Em Quên Tuổi Ngọc” (Lam Phương), “Chuyển Bến” (Đoàn Chuẩn and Từ Linh) and “Ai Về Sông Tương” (Thông Đạt), as they were written. Her flows are rigid and she lands perfectly on every beat. She never pushes her phrasings. She doesn’t play around with time and syncopation. With such a recognizable repertoire, she could have abandon the familiar melodies and reinvent something new. Heck, she could have thrown in some scat phrases or sung behind the beat. The only rule in jazz is to sing or play something not there. With “Huyền Thoại Người Con Gái” (Lê Hựu Hà), she could have challenged the band in double time and the outcome could have been more spontaneous.

The only track that comes close to jazz is “Thuở Ấy Có Em” (Huỳnh Anh). Except for Tuyết Loan, each band member gets a brief solo. I wish more songs were approached this way or even stretch out longer. Since improvisation is so sparse, Thuở Ấy Có Jazz could only be a pop-jazz record, an enjoyable one.

The best part of Thanh Lam and Tùng Dương’s new release, Yêu, is the spellbinding orchestral work. Lê Phi Phi’s elegant, captivating arrangements, which lift the vocalists to a higher level, stand out by themselves. In fact, I hope they would release an instrumental version of this album for pure classical pleasure. In particular the magnificent orchestration of Phạm Duy’s “Kiếp Nào Có Yêu Nhau.”

Vocal wise, Tùng Dương has done an exceptional job of delivering Nguyễn Văn Túy’s “Dư Âm” and Phạm Duy’s “Ngậm Ngùi.” His phrasing is at the borderline between technical and emotional, noticeably the use of vibrato in “Dư Âm.” Although the technique is an obvious influence from Thanh Lam, he knows not to abuse it. As a result, he is still listenable.

On the other hand, Thanh Lam’s overuse of vibrato is irritating. In Cung Tiến’s “Hoài Cảm,” she applies the technique in every bar. I must admit that I have this issue with her for the past few years already and can’t seem to get past it. I am starting to wonder it might just be me being an asshole about it; therefore, I revisited some of her earlier works to see if I am just hearing things. Re-listening to both Tự Sự and Ru Mãi Ngàn Năm confirmed that she treated vibrato with subtlety and her phrasings were clean. She ended each bar without extra emphatic. The precision in her delivery not only made her a strong vocalist, but also a woman with authority. She didn’t fuck around.

Now the excessive sentimentalisms in her delivery make her sound whinny, uncertain and fabricated. Nguyễn Ánh 9 was spot on when he criticized her performance of “Cô Đơn” as a theatrical act more than conveying the lyrics. Even though she pulls herself back on this version, she didn’t go not far enough, especially on the high notes. I wish she could strip all that out and refocus on the emotional core once again.

Aside from the technical annoyances, Yêu is a solid record. Their duets on Phạm Duy’s “Kiếp Nào Có Yêu Nhau,” Cung Tiến’s “Hương Xưa” and Văn Phụng’s “Yêu” are compelling. Tùng Dương turns out to be a much better musical partner for Thanh Lam than Trọng Tấn and Đàm Vĩnh Hưng.

Phương Vy’s youthful new release, Khi Ta 20, gives a grown-ass man like me nostalgia. She brings back the era of Don Hồ, Dalena, Thái Tài, Thúy Vi, Kenny Thái and Ý Nhi. What makes Khi Ta 20 sound modern, however, is that Phương Vy and her tasteful, talented musicians reinvigorated the old pop collection by returning to the basics.

The album kicks off with a refreshing rendition of “Tình Có Như Không” (Trần Thiện Thanh). In the past, this tune is usually arranged in a bright chachacha rhythm. In Phương Vy’s version, the song is stripped down to acoustic picking guitar and savory keyboard licks. Phương Vy’s vocal is also cut down to the emotional core, which gives the tune a deeper, thoughtful feel. The follow-up “Em Đẹp Nhất Đêm Nay,” a ballad from Charles Aznavour and Georges Garvarentz with the infamous Vietnamese lyrics penned by Phạm Duy, gets even simpler. The song begins with an electric bass accompanying her vocals and the killing-me-softly-with-his-finger strumming guitar picks up at the bridge.

With “Mây Lang Thang,” which is a translated piece from Sonny Bono’s “A Cowboys Work is Never Done” that most Vietnamese listeners had been mistaken as a Nam Lộc’s original, the producer brings back the hillbilly vibe with the soaring harmonica and a light swing rhythm. Speaking of jazz, “Gặp Nhau Làm Ngơ” gets a hypnotizing bossa-nova makeover. It’s one of the most elegant renditions of Trần Thiện Thanh’s song up to date.

“Khi Xưa Ta Bé” (Vietnamese lyrics by Phạm Duy) is another excellent rework of Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” The tune is reduced to just sensuous piano and guitar in the beginning, but progresses into mid-tempo swing rhythm. The crisp percussion, thumbing bass and sharp guitar are outstanding and they never overpowered the vocals. Glad to see Phương Vy flirts with some scatting. She should explore more into that territory.

With the title track, the producer takes us to Jamaican for a grooving reggae vibe. The acoustic version is also included as a bonus track, but the reggae joint feels more suitable for twenty-something. Khi Ta 20 goes out with “Biết Ra Sao Ngày Sau,” a cover of Jay Livingston’s “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” with Vietnamese lyrics by Phạm Duy). The song starts out with keyboard imitating the wind-up music box sound, particularly the ones with the ballerina goes round and around, then Phương Vy sings with doubts about her future. Although I concur with her mother’s response, “Whatever will be, will be / The future’s not ours to see / Que sera, sera,” Phương Vy has a glorious future ahead of her. Khi Ta 20 is one of the most re-imaginative albums coming out of the Vietnamese pop scene in a while.

A short list of typographic resources. If you have suggestion, hit me up.

Butterick’s Practical Typography

Read this book if you haven’t. If you want more, check out my 10 Recommended Books on Typography.

Copy Paste Characters

Useful when you need to copy and paste quick HTML codes for a certain characters.

Five Simple Steps to Better Typography

Mark Boulton’s tips on measure, punctuation, ligatures, size and weight.

Modular Scale

Developed by my good friend Tim Brown, modular scale is a great tools for making harmonic headings.

PXtoEm

I use PXtoEm all the time to do calculations for responsive type and layout.

Smart Quotes for Smart People

Jason Santa Maria’s one-page guide to use smart quotes.

Typoguide

This little guide has useful keyboard shortcuts for things like quotes, apostrophes and dashes.

Upping Your Type Game

Jessica Hische’s detailed post on typography.

For those of us celebrating Vietnamese New Year in the ass-freezing weather, Hồ Trung Dũng’s new release, Xuân Thênh Thang, is a pleasant treat to warm up our soul for the holiday spirit. Unlike most xuân music, which has to have an upbeat vibe, Hồ Trung Dũng’s goes for mellow xuân selection.

Standout is his sensational, charming rendition of “Cảm Ơn Một Đóa Xuân Ngời.” His amiable baritone brings out Quốc Bảo’s romantic lyricism, especially on the low stanza: “Em qua cho tình ta dâng lên / Tình ơi hết thơ ngây rồi / Em qua tha thướt lụa là / Rào đón cơn mơ nguy nga.”

Production wise, most arrangements are elegant and straightforward with the exception of “Hãy Mang Đến Những Mùa Xuân” (Nguyễn Đức Trung). By incorporating some Arabic rhythm, Minh Hoàng, a producer to keep on ear on, gives the standard a brand new flavor.

With Ngọc Tuyền’s operatic support, Hồ Trung Dũng closes out the album with his own song. He wrote “Thênh Thang” for himself as well as the lonesome hearts. He reminds us that this is the time of the year to leave all the worries behind and let our spirit shine.

Dealing with children’s fever is daunting. While staying up all night checking on Dan’s temperature in the past two days, I came across an informative guide from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to help me demystify fever.

What is fever?

Fever is the body’s normal way of fighting infection. It alerts us to keep an eye on our child. Normal temperature is between 97°F–100.4°F. A child has a fever if his temperature is higher than 100.4°F.

Putting the fever in perspective

Fevers between 100.5°F–105°F are common in children with illnesses. The height of the fever does not necessarily correlate with severity of illness. We treat children with fever reducing medication to make them more comfortable. Never wake a child just to take a temperature or to give fever reducing medication. Fevers are generally not dangerous until they are over 107°F. Children under 3 months of age with a temperature over 100.4°F should see a doctor.

What to do?

If a child has a fever, dress him in light clothes and encourage him to drink fluids. Avoid bundling him in heavy blankets. Sponge and cool baths are not recommended and may make a child more uncomfortable. If you choose to use a fever reducing medication, we recommend either acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil). We do not recommend alternating these medications or giving them at the same time. These medications will reduce the temperature 1-2 degrees and last several hours. Reducing a temperature to normal is not necessary because a little fever can be beneficial in helping a child fight infection. How a child looks and acts is more important than the number on the thermometer.

Contact doctor’s office if the child is:

• Very irritable
• Not drinking or urinating
• Looking and acting very sick or seems confused
• Feverish for longer than 3 days
• Having difficulty breathing
• Unable to swallow
• Very sleepy and hard to wake up
• Or if you have any concerns

Seizure

Parents are often concerned that a child’s fever will cause a seizure. It is important to note that the risk of seizures is very low. In addition, seizures from fever are not known to cause any long-term problems.