JAY-Z is a lyrical living legend. Underneath his flamboyant flows, he packed his rhymes with articulated alliterations, meticulous metaphors, and witty wordplays. When listening to his music, I always found something new and intriguing. For over a decade, I wanted to pore through his entire catalog to select rhymes that fascinated me. I kept it on the back-burner because I couldn’t find the time. Furthermore, I would have to sift through his misogynist materials as well as his extravagant lifestyles. I had no interest in either subject.

The more I listened to his music, the more his words got into my head. Once I could get past his misogyny and wealth, I found his hustling mentality to change his life and his relentless audacity to change the world inspiring and motivating. In the last few weeks, I was determined to read through song by song, line by line, and word by word starting with Reasonable Doubt to 4:44 and his guest verses for other rappers.

Beacon of HOV is my passion project in which I would like to shed a light on his rhymes that spoke to me. Furthermore, I would like to translate them into Vietnamese. I am not a translator; therefore, I use Google Translate to help me get started. Then I edited Google’s translations with my own understanding of his words. I enjoyed learning the art of translation.

With my favorite JAY-Z rhymes and my Vietnamese translations, I needed a space to host them and the sample section for “Vietnamese Typography” fit the bill. I wanted the web page to be as simple as possible; therefore, I came up with a random system that would feature a different quote, set in a different font, and display a different background photo each time someone visited the page. For typography, I chose typefaces with condensed width so I could make the quotes bigger.

I had a blast putting the page together. I invite you to refresh the page, read the quotes, and be inspired.

In her lyrical Home, Hanson leaves plenty of space on the page to let readers pause, breathe, and heal. What a beautiful book of poetry on heartbreak. I enjoy it immensely even though I am not heartbroken.

Việt Thanh Nguyễn is damn fine writer. I enjoyed his novels, but admired his memoir. His prose commands attention and I couldn’t stop reading his remarkable The Man of Two Faces. As a literary critic, he tackles colonialism, capitalism, and racism head on. As a son, he writes eloquently about his parents. As a Vietnamese American, he holds nothing back from the true meaning behind the American Dream. This memoir is a prerequisite reading for Asian Americans and a required reading for all Americans.

A Few Notes

Nguyễn writes about AMERICA^MT:

a pro-life nation,
indivisible, under God,
has watered its dark fields
with blood spilled from
colonization,
genocide,
slavery
& war.

Nguyễn writes about bad Vietnamese refugees:

Taking welfare benefits while working for cash in the ethnic economy? Receiving government housing subsidies while renting out rooms to even poorer refugees? Faking marriage to get immigration status? Faking divorce so supposedly single parents and their children could get additional benefits? Faking car accidents and injuries for insurance money, and treating nonexistent patients to fraudulently claim government reimbursements? Abusing children and wives? Racially discriminating against the Amerasian children of American soldiers, including those children used as passports to the United States by their families, who then sometimes abandon them? Assaulting and robbing fellow refugees, as well as stealing microchips, extorting businesses, running brothels, and dealing drugs? Assassinating journalists with unpopular opinions about the homeland? Going to the homeland and pretending to be rich even if one is a busboy? Finding a girlfriend, mistress, or second wife and living a doubled existence, or, fuck it, just abandoning one’s diasporic family altogether for the sweet life back home?

Nguyễn writes about his decision to focus on English:

As a child, you must have made the decision. You could not speak both languages like a native or like a master. The worst possible outcome: speak both languages poorly. The next worse outcome: speak English like a foreigner but retain your mother tongue. The best outcome: speak English like a native, Vietnamese like a child.

Now that he is an accomplished writer with a masterful skills for English. It’s time to sew back his mother tongue.

As a father, my constant concerns, worries, and fears on digital addiction, depression, and self-destruction are hitting close to home. They are happening around me to the people I know.

Talking about the danger of digital addiction to my kids isn’t sinking in. They can’t pull themselves away from their screens. Their brains aren’t mature enough to walk away. I can’t help them if they can’t help themselves.

I am so tired of repeating myself. My words don’t mean a thing. I want to just let them do whatever they want with their lives. At work, I present the issues. If they don’t want to fix the issues then they are no longer my problems. My kids are my responsibilities. They stress me out, but I can’t stop worrying. My mind is exhausted by the end of the day.

I am not sure what to do. Continuing to be a pain-in-the-ass parent or preparing for the worst? I really don’t want them to go down the wrong path. Dealing with the issues now rather than facing the consequences later.

A few weeks ago, I replaced 4 brand new tires for our 2011 Toyota Sienna at Costco. They recommended wheel alignment. I was told about the lifetime wheel alignment service at Firestone.

Basically you get free wheel alignment until the end of the vehicle’s lifetime. You just have to pay $200. The deal sounded too good to be true. They must try to sell you other services as well.

I went for it today. I had never done any business at Firestone before. I didn’t make an appointment; therefore, it took about 3 hours. I was fine with that since I could do my work in the waiting area. There was no Wi-Fi, but I could hotspot through my iPhone.

They gave me a list of recommendations, but they did not try to sell me on them. I am cool with that. If this is truly a good deal, I will take my other car for the lifetime wheel alignment as well.

At this time, you can get $20 off for the lifetime wheel alignment. I am not affiliated with Firestone. I just think this is a good deal. So do your research.

What tools do you use to create your résumé nowadays? Many years ago, I created my résumé using Microsoft Words. It was great for catching spelling errors and grammars, but the typesetting was not good. I had to use system fonts like Arial or Verdana to make sure my typography wouldn’t screw up.

Later on, I switched to Adobe Illustrator so I could have control of my typography. The final PDF file could be printed on paper or uploaded to my website. Nevertheless, I wanted to create a true web version of my résumé for accessibility. Having to keep two versions of my résumé was a bit cumbersome. As a result, I designed my résumé with HTML and CSS first then I used CSS printing media query to create the final PDF for printing. Now I only keep the web version of my résumé.

In Professional Web Typography, I walked through the markups for a two-column and three-column layout for creating a web résumé. You can download the source codes for all of the projects in the book to practice your web and typographic skills.

Take a look at my web résumé. It can also be printed out on paper. I added a new position as a type advisor to my résumé. Since the launch of Vietnamese Typography, in 2016, I have been advising type designers around the world with Vietnamese diacritics. I am so glad that I made the book available for free. I am in the process of working with a company that I greatly admired and they required an official title; therefore, I am also a type advisor.

I just realize that Vietnamese Typography went live today eight years ago. Time had flown by quick.

Even though the project was my final thesis for my MA in graphic design, I have never stopped working on it. A website is never finished. I still add recommendations for new typefaces with Vietnamese support. I still create new samples, which no one else cared but me. They have become my favorite design exercise. In addition, coming up for the content for these samples has been my way of learning the Vietnamese language through music and poetry.

I also update the client list. It has been such a great pleasure collaborating and getting to know designers all over the world. Type design is such a global community.

I also would like to thank those who had support this project. I appreciate your generosity.

Lastly, thank you for reading Vietnamese Typography.

I was
You were
He, she, it was

Wait a minute

Why shouldn’t you
also be followed by was?

If I were you
I’d say “was”

But I wasn’t you
I never was
nor will I ever be

In class we chuckled
when we recited “He, she-it is”

and the masculine came first
except when going through a door

Then the word she
went through a door

and into a new world

You wasn’t there

You were “he”
and it kept being “it”

but don’t blame “it”

“It” doesn’t even know it’s there

Ron Padgett

Skiing season is coming soon. It’s time to prepare all the equipment. Tighten up all screws. Grease ski bindings. Install snowboard bindings. Check all boots to make sure they fit and are secured in bindings. Scrape off excessive wax.

I’ll be off work early mid December and return early mid January. We’ll head to Stowe in the third week of December. I can’t wait to get back to skiing and snowboarding. I hope I will be able to get some of the snowboarding techniques down. I have been watching them all year long.

It’s going to be a great winter.

I love Padgett’s poems in which connected the dots. For instance, he gets annoyed that the letter u in four is dropped in forty. He also points out the eccentricity in subject-verb agreement. It’s a fun, witty read.