I added a handful of brand designs to my professional portfolio. Take a look.

In conducting my research for the redesign of Everlasting Eye Care, I looked around at other optometry websites to see how they are done. What I have found are similar templated designs on their homepage with stock photos of people wearing glasses, a few marketing words, and a big button to schedule an appointment. They all claim to be “personable” and yet they all look and feel generic.

In talking with Dr. Nguyễn, I felt the deep passion she had for her profession and the genuine caring she had for her patients. As a result, I decided to scrap all the marketing materials on the homepage and just put up a personal note from Dr. Nguyễn:

Hi, I am Dr. MyAn T. Nguyen and I have been practicing optometry, specializing in dry eyes and contact lens, since 2007.

I have a passion for vision care because I get to enhance people’s quality of life by improving their eye health. As an optometrist, I enjoy interacting with many different people and learning about their diverse backgrounds.

Your eyes are precious; therefore, I will take the time to get to know you, to address your concerns, to provide you with the best treatment options, to offer the latest advancements in the vision industry, and to reassure that you are completely comfortable.

I invite you and your family to come to one of my offices for all your eye needs.

–Dr. MyAn T. Nguyen

I just love that she wants to enhance people’s quality of life by improving their eye health. Her message is relatable and a nice photo of her added a personal touch. When you come to one of her offices, you know exactly who will take care of your eye health. If you live around Trappe or Norristown, Pennsylvania and need an optometrist, come see Dr. Nguyễn. I guarantee that you will get the highest quality of services. I have known Dr. Nguyễn since fifth grade.

I received the following sponsored message in LinkedIn from some dude:

Hello Donny,

As a Director of Design & Web Services at George Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School, I thought this report would interest you on how to drive campaign success through TikTok.

I couldn’t help but thinking of a few bars from Ye’s “All of the Lights,” in which he rhymed:

I’m heading home, I’m almost there
I’m on my way, headed up the stairs
To my surprise, a nigga replacing me
I had to take ’em to that ghetto university

I thought the dude replaced my job.

Dr. Mỹ An T. Nguyễn and I go all the way back to elementary school when we were two new kids immigrated from Việt Nam. Right from the start when took ESL (English as a Second Language) classes together, I knew she would become successful later in life. Despite her limited English, she excelled in all subjects from elementary throughout high school.

After more than two decades of losing contact, we rekindled our friendship. As I had predicted, she has become a successful optometrist who runs two eye-care offices. When she reached out to this old friend of hers to help redesign her website, I could not refuse. Her goal is to showcase both of Everlasting Eye Care offices on one website. She also wanted her site to be easy on the eyes with personal attention in the message.

In our initial conversation, I could tell that Dr. Nguyễn cares deeply about her patients. She wants to enhance people’s quality of life by improving their eye health. In revamping her website, we featured a personal note from Dr. Nguyễn addressing to her patients right on the homepage. For the look and feel, we decided on a clean, crisp, and simple design with a straightforward and intuitive user experience.

The body text for the website is set in Lexend, designed by Bonnie Shaver-Troup, Thomas Jockin, Santiago Orozco, and Héctor Gómez, for comfort reading experience. Headers are set in Literata, designed by Vera Evstafieva, Veronika Burian, Irene Vlachou, and José Scaglione, for high-contrast display to grab readers’ attention.

As a bonus to an old friend, I created a new word mark for Everlasting Eye Care. I combined P22 Cezanne, designed by James Grieshaber and Michael Want, with Optician Sans, design by ANTI Hamar and Fábio Duarte Martins. While the fancy script, which based on Cezanne’s handwriting, provides a free, creating vision, the geometric sans, which based on the LogMAR Chart, provides legibility for visual acuity. The two contrasted typefaces complemented each other for the word mark.

With Dr. Nguyễn’s busy schedule, the site took a long time to launch, but it is my pleasure to redesign the new Everlasting Eye Care website for my friend.

My figure-skating progression has come to a halt. I am stuck on the loop jump and the flip jump. Taking off and landing on the same foot have been a challenge. I can’t maintain the balance to check out. I am thinking of hitting the reset button to spend more time relearning all the basic skills to build a stronger foundation.

Last night I went back to Fairfax Ice Arena to see how my old colleagues were doing. I spoke to two of them and they struggled with the loop and flip jumps as well. The other two colleagues had dropped out of Freestyle 4. There were only four students left. The struggle is real and I am not alone. They encouraged me to keep going. I am going to keep trying for a few more weeks to see where I go.

As for rollerblading, my pumps have improved a bit. I’ll just keep pumping more. The drops are now solid. I am still working on my power stop and T stop. I want to get these techniques down first before moving on.

Đạo and Đán are rejoining me at the skateparks. Xuân is also picking up his scooter again. It is nice to hang out with my boys. We just enjoyed the rides. We don’t need to push ourselves into doing things beyond our comfort level. Of course, we get to have boba tea afterwards. Skating life is good.

I am once again at odds with social media networks. Thank goodness I haven’t even tried Instagram, TicTok, and new social media platforms. I am still on old school platforms. I use Twitter primarily for web development and Vietnamese typography. Twitter seems to work out OK, but it has been taken over by the richest motherfucker in the world. I am not sure how it would change. Although I had been on LinkedIn for a while, I only started to post a few months ago to promote my professional work. I don’t see anything in return. I haven’t landed any career-changing or freelancing opportunities.

I use YouTube to post videos of my kids and I skiing and skating. I just wanted a place to post my videos. I don’t interact much with YouTube, but I do use it quite a bit for all sorts of DIY activities including skating, skiing, and home-improvement.

Facebook is the one that I am disillusioned with. I post photos and videos of our family activities. I am not sure if they come across as showing off or just to let family and close friends see what we’re up to. It made more sense when mother was still alive so she could see her grandchildren. After she passed away, I deleted every post, photo, and video. Then I started posting again. Now I am beginning to wonder what the fuck is the point.

I am not going to deactivate my social media accounts, but I want to return to my blog. My blog is where I can be true to myself. It is liberating to just be able to put down my thoughts without having to check in with anyone. I can write 100 words or 1,000 words on my blog. I can decide how my blog looks and feels. Posting the big hero text alone on my homepage is just so satisfying. The grid layout and the typography are the fun part of improving my blog. My blog feels most personal to me. I have no problem shutting down all my social networks, as long as I still have my blog.

Me: Đán, do your homework.
Đán: I don’t need to do my homework. I already got a PhD.
Me: Yeah? What is a PhD?
Đán: A Pretty Huge Dick.
Me: OK, we are done listening to Kanye West.

The pain in my ass has significantly subsided. I no longer feel the sharp stab every time I get up or sit down. The downside is that the swell is still there as if I have grown a third ball right next to my asshole. I am hoping that the swell will also subside on its own. Right now I don’t mind if it doesn’t cause any issues. As long as I can still skate and rollerblade, I am fine with taking the time for it to flattened.

I am still contemplating on contacting my physician to get an expert examination, but I think I have a pilonidal cyst, which caused by ingrown hair. I didn’t realize that ingrown hair can cause such a huge problem. Now I have the reason and motivation to shave my hairy ass. I would love to pull out my ingrown hair too, but I can’t do it myself.

It seems like the older you get, the more strange issues you encounter. I have never experience any pain in the ass in my life until the last two weeks. I finally understand the true meaning behind “pain in the ass.” It is irritating as fuck so just don’t be a pain in the ass.

I spent a chunk of my time over the weekend taking selfie of my own ass. Is that a sign of becoming a narcissist? The pain in my ass got worse in the past three days. Every time I stood up, I felt a sharp stab to my buttock. Nevertheless, I was still able to rollerblade with a minimal pain as long as I bent my knees and not my butt.

On Saturday, the bump had started to swell and the pain was excruciating. I couldn’t sleep much. Last night was the same deal so I stayed up googling. The closest symptom I could diagnose is a pilonidal cyst. The treatment is to drain the pus or surgical removal. As a keloid former, I don’t want neither, particularly surgery. I don’t want to have keloid on my ass.

I planned on calling my physician this morning to get an expert examination and to see what I should do. The pain, however, reduced since I started taking Aleve on Sunday afternoon and evening. Should I waited out for it to seal on my own or should I consult my doctor? I am going to wait for a few more days hoping it will pop on its own.

The Founders is engaging and Jimmy Soni is an excellent storyteller. I was also curious about the story of PayPal since I have been using its service forever. Nevertheless, I could only get through half of the book. I am just tired of reading about fucking Elon Musk. This guy is taking up way too much space already.