True! Design is everywhere you look but if you don’t understand what you are staring at then design is useless. Fortunately, Steven Aimone’s Design! will open up your mind and guide you to see the purpose of design. What are descriptive, narrative, emotive, utilitarian, and decorative of designs? What are the elements of design (lines, shapes, textures, colors, etc.)? Why are a certain elements arranged they way they are? Why is design space important? If you’re unclear about the answers to these questions, this book will help you straightened out.

As someone who gets involved with web design as a passion, I had no prior training on design. While my classes at La Salle were too busy shoving down Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and other software programs, the fundamentals of design were not part of the curriculum. One of our art professors realized the important of the missing part and tried to cover it but the class was not as successful as it should be. The hands on assignments she gave us (the black squares exercises) were definitely on the right track but most of my classmates thought they were kindergarten because the theories were missing. If she had this book to accommodate her assignments, the class would have been a huge success; therefore, Design! should be a required textbook for any Art 101 or Introduction to Visual Design classes at colleges and universities.

Design! is not only an invaluable design inspiration but an enjoyable reading as well because of its easy to read approach and clear visual examples. I recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone who designs for a living or pleasure and to anyone who simply enjoys and appreciates the aesthetic qualities from the work of art.

It comes to my surprise that not too many Vietnamese folks are familiar with Bun Goi Gia. Am I lucky or what to have a mother who can cook rare and delicious dishes? Mom told me the only place she knows of that makes Bun Goi Gia is in My Tho, my hometown in Vietnam. A woman, on the street of My Tho, who only cooks this dish to make a living and she has been selling it for over 20 years. I can figure out why she lasts for so long. It’s such a mouth-watering dish. Unlike Bun Mam, Bun Nuoc Leo or Bun Kien Giang where the heavy use of Mam (fermented fish) is required, Bun Goi Gia’s broth gets its tang from the tamarind’s sensation; therefore, the fragrance is much more pleasing than Mam.

All you really need are the delightful broth, shrimp, pork (with fat and skin), bean spouts, and my favorite He, grass-like vegetable (see photo for detail). If you prefer heavier dip for shrimp and pork, Mam Nem (Fermented Anchovy) enhances the flavor beautifully. If you would like to increase the depth of the broth, a spoon of Hoisin sauce or a half-spoon of fish sauce will do. It depends on how sweet or salty you would like to accommodate the sensational sour tamarind. Bun Goi Gia is my most favorites out of all the vermicelli with broth dishes. I highly advocate Bun Goi Gia to not only Vietnamese folks but Westerners as well. Believe me, you’ll love it. It’s savory.

The media needs to back off My Tam. She deserves all the praises for her hard work because she rocked her concert. Ngay Ay & Bay Gio was beautifully executed so I don’t know what the negative criticisms were about. She is young, talented, beautiful, and creative.

Even though she performed almost all of her signature songs such as “Toc Nau Moi Tram,” “Hoa Mi Toc Nau,” “Cay Dan Sinh Vien,” “Hat Cho Nguoi O Lai,” “Uoc Gi,” “Mai Yeu” and many more, the music are newly arranged to give viewers some fresh vibes. In addition, the live orchestra added an exquisite experience to the show. The only song I wish she would perform was “Hat Voi Dong Song.” No one can express that song better than she can.

Vocally, My Tam did a fantastic job and she was able to perform 18 plus songs without a short of breath. In “Trai Tim Em Con Yeu,” she impressed me with her English pronunciations. Although there were flaws in some of the words, her English improved tremendously. Her acapella version of Trinh Cong Son’s “Dem Thay Ta La Thac Do” was still mesmerizing. Her own materials, “Nu Hon Bat Ngo” and “Vi Dau,” obviously can’t match up with other songwriters’ works but they were lively and well written. I highly encourage My Tam to keep on writing. She has potential.

Choreographically, My Tam has a great stage charisma. From rock inspired “Bang Bang” to Spanish passion “Tinh Thoi Xot Xa,” she knew how to work the crowd, especially the way she swang her hair in “Xich Lo” and a little rump shakers in “Hoa Mi Toc Nau.” The ballerina/break-dance in “Yeu Dai Kho” is highly innovative. It’s jaw dropping to see My Tam leaped high, rolled on the floor, and did a split at the end. The best part was that she was being herself out there and trying to have fun. She got hype and wild as she pleased and the crowd loved it and I surely adored it.

My Tam definitely has a fine taste in style. She looked elegant whether in a sophisticated evening gown or simple jeans and shirt. Unlike the hoochies on Paris By Night, she still appeared hot and sexy without bearing her skins. She proved talent has way more class than sex and I respect her for that.

Although Ngay Ay & Bay Gio was a huge investment for My Tam, it was worthwhile. She did everything she could and gave one of the best live concerts ever made in Vietnam. She should not allow the media to influence her works. She should spend her energy on pushing herself to the limit and expanding her artistic vision. My Tam’s live show is an alternative to the tiresome Paris By Night and their lip-synching. Beside the slightly poor quality on the DVD because of technicallity, the live show is pure entertainment.

Is Talib Kweli’s Beautiful Struggle struggling that bad? Didn’t cop the album but heard a couple of tracks. While his lyrical content is impressive, his delivery isn’t so convincing. He can’t flow to the beat the way Pac did. Speaking of Pac, Beautiful Struggle makes me appreciates Me Against The World even more. It’s a fantastic album with beautiful lyrics, blazing flows, and bomb-ass beats. The way Pac dropped his verse was amazing.

One of the benefits of working at Vassar is being around two of the most talented senior graphic designers (George Laws and Charles Mosco) who are expert in typography. Whenever they produced a poster, I often studied it carefully to figure out how they handled their types. Most of the time, I find their type treatments to be elegant and well communicated. Inspired by their works, I constantly seek for type books to sharpen my skills. In most cases, there are books that focused mainly on theories while others gave examples without detail explanations. Fortunately, Timothy Samara’s Typography Workbook bridges the gap.

The book divided into two main parts. The fundamental section covers technical aspects such as letterform, spacing, variation, color, and expression, and so on to help you understand the basic principles of typography. This section is crucially important; therefore, many revisits may be necessary. Once you comprehend the theories, the second section puts your knowledge to work. Whether you design a book, website, poster, identity, motion graphic or other media, this book provides tons of real-world examples with clear explanations to fuel your imagination.

I am so glad the book dedicated a section to web design. Even though the web is limited in typography due to the dependable on the users part, you still can design elegant and beautiful sites with appropriate execution of type treatments, especially with the power of CSS. Just incase you’re wondering, this book is strictly on the design of types; therefore, it does not cover any CSS. However, one of the inspiring features on this book is the interview with respected designers in different fields to give you a sense of how they approach their projects.

Typography Workbook indisputably is an invaluable resource and an inspirational supply for designers. The best part about type design is that you can communicate effectively without images. In real-life, images are not always available; therefore, type design skills come extremely in handy. Pick up this book and start investing your time on typography. It will definitely paid off down the road.

Inspired by the aesthetic beauty of Vassar, this particular motion piece is filled with wonderful shots of its campus and students. Actually, I had this project in mind for a while but never get a chance to work on it until this past weekend and it only took me a few hours. I felt in love with the campus the first time I came for my job interview. Watch the slideshow and you’ll see why. Make sure to crank up your speakers. I don’t care if your boss is standing right next to you.

Disclaimer! Even though the piece is about Vassar, it has nothing to do with work. It’s only for my personal entertainment purpose but if you are considering going to Vassar, you might want to check it out. All images are used with permission from Vassar. Music produced by Tomoyasu Hotei, courtesy of IRc2 Corp. and Toshiba-EMI Ltd.

Eminem’s new single “Just Lose It.” Here he goes again with the wack-ass hook and bang-ass beat. Can’t wait until Encore, his new album, drops.

Yahoo goes standards but doesn’t support Safari. What is up with that? It looks good though. This is a big move and a right direction for Yahoo.

Asian American is the Least Likely to vote. Hey! I registered.

The real Tuan Ngoc without makeup. Although he is aging, his voice remains unchanged.

This is what you get when you put a group of creative minds together.

Design Inside is what we (designers of College Relations) have been picking out our brains for almost a year and sweating on for the past two weeks. It’s an exhibition showcases web sites, web banners, posters, brochures, books, magazines and other designs produced by the Office of College Relations. This is the image of the college. This is the art of communicating life at Vassar.

Design Inside was a learning experience for me since this is my first time working on an exhibition. It gave us an opportunity to collaborate and communicate closely between web and graphic designers. The best part was where each of our best skill was applied to the project. For example, Julia wrote our texts, George picked out the colors for the walls, Charlie designed the pedestals, Megg constructed a big sitemap, Chris created an interactive piece, and I used Flash for various banners display. As a result, everything comes together nicely.

If you don’t know, now you know.
Below is my brief biography written by Julia Van Devleder.

Donny Truong is a very visual guy, as you will see if you visit his personal website, VisualGUI.com. He’s apparently a punster, too, since G.U.I. also stands for Graphical User Interface.

Truong was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 12. He received his bachelor’s in Digital Arts and Multimedia Design at La Salle University in 2001, at which point the Office of College Relations scooped him right up.

Inspired by pure and elegant design, Truong says that “it’s sometimes not what you put in but what you take out…. I am obsessed with white space and breathing room.” Web designers often emphasize usability, and of course that’s important, Truong says. But he believes that aesthetically designed sites are easier to use than sites designed without attention to basic aesthetic principles.

In addition to his Vassar websites and his personal site, Truong designed and continues to develop iLoveNgocLan.com, a personal project to honor Ngoc Lan, a talented Vietnamese singer who has more than 600 songs to her credit. He also reads voraciously, watches movies, and writes reviews to hone his writing skills.

Actually? He ought to write restaurant reviews! Truong says he doesn’t cook, but he does eat. Check out his Blog for mouthwatering descriptions of some classic Vietnamese dishes.

First of all, I would like to thank Hoang, a Visualgui.com reader, for providing me an album that I enjoy greatly. Tu Su is a showcase of both Thanh Lam’s artistic vision and her father’s (Thuan Yen) innovative composition. Thuan Yen must be exceedingly proud to have a daughter who can express his music gorgeously. I presume it runs in the family.

Tu Su is an aesthetically beautiful work of art that can be experienced from start to end without skips and many replays are necessary because of the brilliant collaboration between refined vocals, sharpened music, and tranquility poetries. The album kicks off with the sentimental “Em Toi” (poem by Xuan Truong) with the soothing traditional instruments. Together they have created an emotional and beautiful song. On “DangVi Tinh Yeu” (poem by Khanh Nguyen) demonstrates her skillful wordplay. The way she adorably recites, “Em dau co nho” shows her fearless attitude when it comes to push the limit.

On “Tu Su,” “Tinh Ca Mua Thu,” “Tim Anh,” and Thanh Pho Vang Anh,” she delivers breathless performances. “Tinh Yeu Khong Loi” could have been flawless if they didn’t include those nonsense remarks. Thanh Lam definitely exceeds Dam Vinh Hung vocally on this track but what is up with “Uh Yeah! Shake it like a white girl” (Not from Thanh Lam)? That kind of intro degrades the value of the song greatly. Fortunately, “Khac Vong” beautifully wraps up the album with a smooth beat and meticulous flow.

Similar to Tuan Ngoc, Thanh Lam has an incredible style of her own and she is an artist to be reckoned with. Tu Su presents both her passion for making music and her seriousness concerning her craft. Once again, my appreciate goes to Hoang for sharing with me this invaluable piece of music.

Tuan Ngoc’s Huong Toc Em is a rare collection distributed by Tektronic Music, a production I have never heard of. I have no clue when the album released but the musical arrangements are nicely engineered. The album features ten original hits from songwriters/composers such as Bao Truong, Nguyen Tat Vinh, Hoang Viet, and Truong Phu Hau, who works are unfamiliar to me.

An album like Huong Toc Em certifies that Tuan Ngoc is still one of the best Vietnamese singers. He takes on dissimilar and unpopular songs that are not too many artists have the confidence to perform. Yet, he’s still able to captivate the listeners with his robust, suave, and smooth styles. His expert treatments on Bao Truong’s romantic despairs “Tren Nhanh Rong Tinh” and “Mach Suoi Nguon” alone demonstrated his astonishing talents. “Huong Toc Em,” “Toi Yeu Em Nghiet Nga,” “Doan Tinh” and the rest of the tracks are what you would expect from Tuan Ngoc.

Unlike other albums where you can tell whether it is good or best after listening to it for the first time, Huong Toc May, as well as other albums by Tuan Ngoc, doesn’t hit you right away. You might need to give it at least five times to sink in. It takes me at least ten listens to feel its vibe. If you’re not used to Tuan Ngoc’s style, chances are you won’t like this album. If you appreciate his signature songs, you’ll be grateful for possessing it.