Dương T®ần

Sat, Nov 15, 202511:07:16 AM

Just a chill Vietnamese Graphic-turned-Type Designer sharing his works and passion. [More]

Service

• Custom Typefaces
• Vietnamese Diacritics Support
• Lettering/Logotype

Info

I’m not a researcher, though I love digging into things — that’s where ideas usually start.

I’m not a collector either, but I can’t help keeping old stamps, books, specimens, and tags around for inspiration.

I’m a graphic-turned-type designer based in Hanoi, Vietnam. I love crafting letterforms that sit somewhere between precision and emotion — making functional design feel a little more poetic. My work has earned recognition from the Type Directors Club, D&AD, It's Nice That, Creative Boom, Behance, …

By day, I’m at @B&A Design Agency. But by night, I’m all alone geeking out over letters.

Tired City

My contribution was the revision of the Tired City bespoke typeface, originally designed by Two Nguyen. The update required a technical focus on mastering the visual weight and spacing, increasing the legibility between characters, figures, and redesigning the diacritics for practical uses.

[Custom Typeface]/[Typography]

2025, Commissioned by Hands Collective, for Tired City

Tired Wide Short

Width: 720 Short: 10 Size: 32

Tired Normal

Width: 400 Short: 0 Size: 32

Process and notes captures

Overview of the typeface and the characters set

Versatile and functional, the typeface features 12 styles divided into two broad groups: one for formal use and the other for playful applications

New packaging system & products (Photo from Hands Collective)

The typeface suits the new logo’s tone, but contrast and diacritic issues limited its usability

The diacritics were inspired by old signages and prints

Icons are embedded within the ligature set, allowing them to be typed directly through character combinations

The fonts maintain a squar-ish rhythm, with diacritics designed to sit neatly within tight line spacing, especially in the “Shorten” styles.

The "Hơn" Project

B&A creates a Lunar New Year gift each year for the clients, collaborators, and friends. For 2025, I had the chance to lead the project — teaming up with a new generation of young creatives at the agency to bring a fresh, artistic twist to this year’s gift.

Have you ever thought that "More (vie/ Hơn)" can be a theme or even a message?

[Custom Typeface]/[Graphic Design]

2025, Part of B&A Agency

Overview of the gift set and items inside

Inspirations from the tradition of collecting calligraphic letters during the Lunar New Year (Tết).

What I should achieve, is not to recreate some historical emblems or our old language - Chữ Nôm. I think it’s best to attract people, make them think and question when they see something that looks so cultural next to the word “hơn”

The custom typeface, the patterns and the illustrations

A 2-meter scroll carrying 365 words — one for each day of the year

A design defined purely by embossing and foil, no print involved.

The best item at the bottom of the gift set

Hanoi Grotesk

A customized grotesk, serving as a holistic solution for the HFCD24 brand identity. Inspired by the architecture of the "Cung Văn Hóa thiếu nhi," the font features unique architectural cuts and essential OpenType.

[Customized Typeface]

2024, Commissioned by Đīnh Collective, for Hanoi Creative Design Festival

Regular

Alt: OFF

Open-type features for flexability, it's fun right?

Architectural cuts inspired from the logo

The font features 3 weights, with Regular being the primary one, and the others serving as supporting roles for logotypes or highlights.

The base skeleton font from my "secret" collection

The re-engineering process for each letterform of "Mẫu Tự" (a decorative pattern font, used for the identity), with every glyph aligned to a square 2048px em box.

Photo by Tân Tân, Đīnh Collective

Photo by Tân Tân, Đīnh Collective

Celano Sans

A bespoke typeface for Celano, a premium Vietnamese ice-cream brand, as part of their 2024 redesign. The concept was to create a font that was playful and youthful for a modern audience while incorporating Vietnamese nostalgia.

[Custom Typeface]

2024, Commissioned by Bloom Agency, for Celano Ice-cream

Bold

Alt: OFF

Regular

Alt: g.ss01

Inspiration posters from Foire - exposition de Hanoi

Overview of the typeface

Design details

Bebop Saigon

Commissioned by G M, Bebop Saigon’s custom typeface blends jazz-inspired rhythm with friendly curves and subtle quirks that keep it full of energy.

[Custom Typeface]

2024, Commissioned by G M, for Bebop Restaurant

Display

Alt: OFF

Overview of the characters and design choices

*Let's wait for G M's full showcase for more details

Type testing

Ino Sans

A more refined typeface for a household goods brand. Our goal was to enhance Inochi’s spirit and brings their tagline—Beside you every day—to life.

[Custom Typeface]

2023, Commissioned by B&A Agency, for Inochi

Display - Bold

Alt: OFF

Display - Medium

Alt: Rare ligature ON

Text - Regular

Alt: OFF

Text - Italic

Alt: OFF

Inspired by Inochi’s products, the typeface combines rounded, playful forms with open terminals for a friendly, distinctive character

The old typeface, Averta, included unnecessary details and lacked a premium feel, while its diacritics were not practically optimized

I explored which sans-serif genre would suit Inochi. While the logo’s geometric shapes suggested an industrial feel, it also needed warmth, so we chose to go with both Grotesk and Geometric

Vietnamese diacritics were carefully adjusted and optimized to fit within the line height for both Display and Text size

OpenType features are ideal for packaging applications

3 axes for variable fonts: weight, size and italic

Mayonaka

A custom typeface made from the initial logo that G M designed for Mayonaka, a Japanese restaurant.

[Custom Typeface]

2023, Commissioned by G M, for Mayonaka

Bold

Alt: Y.ss01

We played around with round contours and square counters to capture that old-school street LED signs, buzzing with life

Inspired by the concept of late-night neon lights

A typeface that glows with character—just like the buzz of a late-night stroll through the city.

©2025 Dương Trần. All rights reserved. This site might shift anytime—blame it on my love for design.