Lúc xưa tôi mê gái đẹp. Bây giờ có vợ rồi tôi chuyển sang mê chữ đẹp. Cái hứng thú hiện tại của tôi là kỹ thuật sắp chữ. Giống như nhạc, chữ cũng có giai điệu và nhịp điệu. Làm thế nào để sếp chữ cho rõ, đẹp và dể đọc thật là một điều thú vị.

Lúc trước tôi sếp chữ theo sự cảm nhận riêng của mình. Bây giời tôi sếp chữ theo thiết kế mình làm. Tôi đã bỏ ra khá nhiều thời gian đễ đọc và học hỏi thêm về cách sắp chữ. Hằng đêm tôi thường thức đến một hai giờ sáng để đọc những cuốn sách nói riêng về lịch sử của chữ và cách sắp chữ. Lúc mới đọc thật buồn ngủ lắm nhưng càng đọc tôi càng thấy rất thú vị. Thư viện của trường đại học George Mason có một kệ sách dành riêng cho chủ đề chữ. Tôi lần lược đọc từ mới đến củ. Quyển sách mà tôi đọc đi đọc lại là The Elements of Typographic Style của Robert Bringhurst. Đọc lần đầu tôi chẳng hiểu gì cả nhưng rồi càng đọc tôi càng thích. Mỗi lần đọc tôi học được mỗi thứ khác nhau.

Cũng may là chữ Việt Nam ta viết theo chữ Latin nhưng có thêm phần dấu rất kỳ diệu. Cũng may là tôi còn giữ lại một phần vốn luyến nhỏ của chữ Việt. Ngày xưa tôi rất lười học và ghét nhất là viết chữ. Lúc học lớp một tôi nhờ một đứa hàng xóm viết chữ cho tôi khi cô giáo cho bài làm ở nhà. Nó viết xong tôi tặng nó cây cà rem. Vì vậy mà chữ viết của tôi bây giờ vẫn xấu vô cùng.

Đa số người Việt mình thì lại rất chú trọng chữ viết tay. Có rất nhiều người Việt thường thích dùng loại chữ script. Có lẽ là vì tôi viết chữ xấu nên tôi cũng không ưng chữ script lắm. Mỗi lần làm việc với người Việt tôi thường được lời yêu cầu dùng chữ script để nhìn cho nó “lả lướt.” Chữ script cũng có lúc cần dùng đến nhưng không thể nào dùng trong mỗi trường hợp vì nó rất khó đọc.

Theo cá nhân tôi, một người thiết kế trang web hay thiết kế đồ họa cần phải nắm vững công nghệ sếp chữ. Dùng chữ nào cho phù hợp với cái mình thiết kế là một sự thách thức không dễ. Nhưng khi chọn đúng chữ thì cũng như gặp được người đẹp như ý.

Dạo này khá bận rộn với công việc, con cái và bài vỡ. Mấy tuần nay ngủ không đủ nên bệnh và khá nhức đầu nên không còn đủ tâm trạng cũng như thời gian để blog. Tuy vậy nhưng tôi vẫn thấy may mắn và hạnh phút. Công việc vẫn suôn sẻ. Gia đình vẫn ấm cúng. Chỉ là không đủ thời gian để làm hết mọi thứ mình muốn. Đến giờ tôi vẫn không thực hiện được cách ổn định giờ giấc và những thứ cần thiết và không cần thiết. Có lẻ thêm hai năm nữa khi Cu Đán lớn lên một chúc thì sẽ đỡ hơn. Bây giờ Cu Đạo đã tự làm được khá nhiều việc nên cũng đỡ phần nào. Thôi thì tới đâu hay đến đó. Bây giờ tan sở đi rước hai thằng nhóc về tắm rữa cho tụi nó rồi đi học tối nay. Mông rằng ông thầy sẽ hài lòng về những thiết kế đã bỏ hết mấy đêm dài tạo ra.

Anh Thơ has such a soaring soprano that her singing could be quite torturing every time she hits the high notes. That might be good for a dramatic opera, but not so good for Vietnamese intimate ballads and traditional folks tunes. Her new release, Mình Thương Nhớ Nhau, is the proof. Her rendition of “Riêng Một Góc Trời” (Ngô Thụy Miên) is so acidic and so piercing that if you turn the volume loud enough in a car with the windows rolled up, her voice might break the glass. Right off “Thương Lắm Tóc Dài Ơi!” (Phú Quang), she wastes no time flighting into the high register and pushes beyond comfort level. In folks tunes, like “Trở Lại Sông Quê” (Xuân Đồng), her high voice diminishes the traditional vibe, especially when the soprano voice competes with the flute. The main issue is the mix and match between vocals and compositions. She needs to change to her alto range or pick something else that has operatic vibe.

We were driving home yesterday, Dan saw a truck and informed me, “Fuck, daddy.” Later on he yelled, “Dirty fucker.” I replied, “You mean, dirty tractor?” He responded, “fucker.” I think I need to contact a speech therapist or something. I must admit. I kind of enjoy his talk.

I would like to begin with Visualgui. Since this site showcases my work and personal exploration, I try to redesign it each year to improve the look and feel, tighten up the markups and incorporate the latest techniques I have learned. For the latest iteration, however, simplification was my goal. I wanted the site to have HTML5 markups, but not having to depend on JavaScript. I wanted to offer a user-center experience without depending on jQuery. I wanted to focus on readability and legibility across mobile devices.

The homepage is all about providing a reading experience. The body copy is set in Noto Serif. I chose Noto Serif for its legibility as well as its support for Vietnamese diacritics. I paid particular attention on the leading and line length, even on smaller screens, for readability. I am obsessed with typography. Even with the logo, I wanted to have real font, not just an image. The logo is set in Krona One, which is a beautiful, Swiss-inspired typeface.

Technically speaking, Visualgui is powered by WordPress with a heavy customized theme I have developed. It’s fairly stripped down to fit my needs. I only use the hooks that I absolutely need and nothing else. I am also using Sass to manage my CSS. I was a bit hesitated at the beginning, but now I don’t want to write CSS without Sass.

The second project I wanted talk about is the George Mason Law School. I have been with the Law School for two years now and I have learned so much from a developer standpoint. When I came to the Law School, my server admin skill was quite limited. Then I learned how to use Linux. I learned about Apache and I now love the command lines. I am basically responsible for everything from server administration to web site design/development to content management system.

The school main site is running on MODX. I didn’t know anything about MODX, but I began to love it as I started to work with it. It offers so much more flexibility than WordPress and Drupal. Within the first three months into my job, I was able to redesign the entire Law School site to bring the markup to HTML5 and made the entire site responsive. I was so amaze at the ability to pull off such a large site; therefore, I really like MODX.

I took what I have learned about MODX at the Law School and worked on a freelance project. Poplar Springs is a family-owned property spread over more than 200 acres of rolling countryside in northern Virginia’s wine country. When they approached me, I knew immediately that I needed to get them on board with me and get rid of its Flash-powered site. Then when it came to the content, they weren’t able to bring it all together so I suggested to them to hire a former colleague of mine who is a fantastic writer and editor. Working with a content strategist was such a pleasure. Together we delivered a brand new site that is clean, inviting and responsive. Their only booking jumped up to 300% with the new, mobile-friendly design.

The last project I want to show you is a personal one. I love jazz and a huge fan of Miles Davis. Three years ago, I created Sketches of Miles. At the time, HTML5 was so new to me and I wanted to learn it. At the same time CSS3, which offers the ability to use types beyond the web safe set. Google was also just offering its web fonts. If I remember correctly, it had about 75 fonts in its collection.

At the time I also heard about Stacey, which is a lightweight CMS that requires no database setup and installation files. It also gives you the ability to customize individual pages. With all the right tools available at my disposal, I wanted to create an art-directed site that combines Miles Davis’s album and web typography. After purchasing The Complete Columbia Album Collection of Miles Davis, I would go through and listen to each album, review it with one sentence and build the page using that one sentence review for each week. I had a lot of fun doing it and I learned quite a bit as well.

Four like-minded musicians from four different parts of the world came together to pay hypnotic homage to two innovators of jazz: Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. As a huge fan of both Coleman and Dolphy and having spent countless of hours soaking in their works, I find c.o.d.e. to be a refreshing reinterpretation of their classics.

Last night, I came to realize that Dan replaces “tr” with “f” when he talks. For instance, he would say “frain” instead of train. As we were on the road yesterday, he screamed really loud, “Daddy, fuck dơ.” My wife and I couldn’t stop laughing. I asked him, “Con nói gì vậy?” He repeated, “fuck dơ” and pointed to a dirty truck on the road. When he grows older, I’ll remind him that he already started cussing when he’s not even two.

Dao is getting very complex with his speech. He picks up words fast and he applies them immediately. When I pointed out to him a car transporter, he would use that word as soon as he sees a truck that carries cars on the road. We were arguing yesterday over who saw the convertible Mustang first. As we went back and forth, he immediately said, “That’s enough.” Last Tuesday after picking them up at daycare, I told him that I have to go to class tonight and he said, “But I need a parent to watch me and my baby.” Of course I wouldn’t leave them without his mom. I am not that insane yet.

I asked professor Cui to allow me to move my presentation up to today because my focus is on literary storytelling and I thought it would be beneficial to our second project, or at least would give you another perspective on it.

After seeing the examples that George and Melody had shown us, I knew I needed to step up my game. As I was thinking about my topic and scouring the web to find examples, I realize that I have done quite a bit of literary storytelling for personal and professional work; therefore, I am just going to show you some of them and talk a bit about the process behind them.

The first piece is typographic treatment of Adam Mansach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep. It’s a satire children book that I instantly connected with when I first read the story. I spent so many nights trying to get my son to sleep and understood exactly what the author went through. The concept for this piece is very simple. I used type as visual and combining it with Samuel L. Jackson’s narration to tell the story.

For the second piece, I was commissioned by a Vietnamese-American photographer who puts out a calendar each year showcasing Vietnamese traditional long dress. All the profits he made would go to the orphanage in Vietnam. When he approached me to create the slideshow, he gave me access to all of his photos and the complete creative freedom to work on the piece.

As I went though his photos, I noticed similar patterns in his work. The way that the traditional long dress wrapping around the body created beautiful forms, shapes, lines and curves. The models were very relaxed as if they were in a sleeping mode. Then immediately a song from an independent singer at the time came to mind. It’s a simple folksy song, more like a lullaby, but set in an electric guitar backdrop. The lyric is about a mother singing her kid to sleep. As we watch “Ao Dai Trang A Oi,” notice how the fingerpicking guitar matches with the forms and the curves.

Comparing this piece with the first piece, you can see the different in parenting approach between a mother and a father. A mother would sing you the whole lullaby until you fall asleep. The father would just like, “go the fuck to sleep.”

The third piece titled “A Few Gifts for My Homeland” is a very controversial song about the Vietnam War. Even though many singers have covered the tune, the one that struck me the most is from this one pop singer. You could tell that she meant every word she sang. In some ways, the song reminds of Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit.” The power that these singers connected to the lyrics is amazing. They were not just singing it. They lived and breathed it. I am just going to show a short part of it.

The final piece is Jay-Z’s “Picasso Baby.” What’s interesting about this piece is they way Jay-Z connects art with hip-hop. As he explains in the beginning of the video how art and hip-hop was one. They were outcasts and they aren’t allowed inside the gallery. Then art got into the gallery and hip-hop disassociated with it. Now he’s just bringing it back together. Let’s watch the performance.

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Since early summer, Dan started to sing “A ba dee… A ba dee” and clapped his hands or swing them up and down. The song has a nice melody. Even Dao and I started to sing along, but we had no idea what the song was about. I thought it was a Jewish song that he learned at summer camp. I asked his teachers and no one knew what Dan was singing about either.

Last weekend, my wife cracked the code and discovered that “A Ba Dee” is Dan’s unique rendition of “Happy Birthday.” If you ask him to sing “Happy Birthday,” he would sing “A Ba Dee.” If you listen closely you can hear the similarity. Dan has the tendency to skip words and somehow he hears things differently. He still says “fucker” instead of “tractor.”

I am not sure if this is his gift or his curse. On one hand, it’s hard to understand the things he says. On the other hand, he completely invented a new melody from such a familiar song. In a way, that is what jazz musicians had done most of the time when they reinterpreted a standard. I am finding this development from Dan to be quite fascinating. I can’t wait to sing “A Ba Dee” when he turns two.