Designing a system typeface that speaks Vietnamese.

First of all, I’m proud of being Vietnamese.

I’m proud of our country’s values, our countrymen — who are traveling across the globe and making wonders, our distinguish & diverse traditional cuisines that nowhere else can have. Above all of that, I’m proud of my language.

However, living in the era of the digital revolution, I feel fortunate that our Vietnamese — Quoc Ngu is using a Latin script system, the most commonly used script in the world, but it is also painful in the heart knowing that Vietnamese people have not really mastered their language in the digital environment. What I want to emphasize here, is that we still have to borrow or buy typefaces made by European and American friends.

Therefore, it is this that motivates me and my colleagues of the design team at beGroup Vietnam to embark on the implementation of the “be Vietnam” project — a versatile typeface designed and produced entirely by Vietnamese, with the desire to be shared for everyone to use.

I. Context & Problems:
beGroup is a young startup, but the product design team at be is a collection of powerful people and a great desire for product design & user experience. At the time I started my work, the team shared that they were still struggling with their system typeface: Poppins (display & body) and IBM Plex…