Text/background colors?

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dubiousdisc
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by dubiousdisc »

No preference but DEFINITELY biiiiig text. Seconding what Destinie was saying about NOT pure black on pure white (unless text is really big).

ALSO A DECENT LINE HEIGHT and no weird shit with the kerning or I'm out. One more for the club of shitty eyes ;_;

edit: oh and actually, whenever I see itty bitty text, light grey on slightly darker grey, not only I get out immediately without even trying, but I actually get pretty mad because putting aesthetic in front of usability is something that really drives me nuts. Especially considering that eye defects are so common, so it's not like it's a matter of taking into account a tiny percentage of the population, and that I swear that I've seen sites that could only be readable by someone with perfect vision, and that's just not okay.

I hope that people that do that aren't as malicious as I fear. I hope it's just that they are unaware, and not that they know that some people won't be able to see shit but screw them.

As a side note, I thought the itty bitty fonts had died like, ten years ago. They seem to have come back with tumblr, somehow. Go figure.
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by Robin »

Yaaaaas. Also, I like to break up giant walls of text into paragraphs for easier reading, too :)
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Laura
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by Laura »

AdriCULOUS wrote:Actually, I still see these "itty bitty fonts" on shrines even today (and I'm talking about the ones currently updated months or a year ago, not some 10+ years ago). I even remember back in those old WPR days where I was marked as a negative by the reviewer for having a text "too big," and I was using either 12px Tahoma or 12px Trebuchet MS back in the days, and that the text "interrupts" the layout design. >.> *sigh*
LOL! My OLD sites are super guilty of this. I go back to some of them and I'm squinting so hard... like what was I thinking?? I guess back when I made those layouts (+10 years ago), the font size was way more legible but oh god, just no. I don't know why small fonts were so in back then, I really don't. I don't think it was exclusive to the anime/manga/games community either? Can't remember, but design sure has changed a lot since.

I haven't seen too many tiny fonts on sites today thankfully. Everyone should be using larger fonts, IMO. There's no point in writing content if your viewers can't actually read it. xD That goes for colour choices too. I personally HATE black backgrounds with white text, my eyes want to fall out of their sockets. It's okay for a few stylistic things but good lord, that high contrast is terrible for large blocks of text. T_T I still like dark bg with lighter text though, depends on the contrast between them and the overall design. :)
dubiousdisc
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by dubiousdisc »

Wolfrun: shhhhh it's okay we're talking about newer things XD it's okay if you're left with some old things that are like that

speaking of which, I need to change one particular old layout that has white on black >_> what was I thinking
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by Robin »

*...shuffles off with newest site made entirely with black background and almost-white text* LOL
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Laura
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by Laura »

dubiousdisc wrote:Wolfrun: shhhhh it's okay we're talking about newer things XD it's okay if you're left with some old things that are like that

speaking of which, I need to change one particular old layout that has white on black >_> what was I thinking
Yeah, it's one reason why I'm doing this redesign project for all my older sites. xD I mean, it's fine to leave them up for archive but it's pointless if people can't even read the archive, ahaha. XD
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FandomSavant
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by FandomSavant »

wolfrun wrote:
dubiousdisc wrote:Wolfrun: shhhhh it's okay we're talking about newer things XD it's okay if you're left with some old things that are like that

speaking of which, I need to change one particular old layout that has white on black >_> what was I thinking
Yeah, it's one reason why I'm doing this redesign project for all my older sites. xD I mean, it's fine to leave them up for archive but it's pointless if people can't even read the archive, ahaha. XD
AdriCULOUS wrote:
dubiousdisc wrote: edit: oh and actually, whenever I see itty bitty text, light grey on slightly darker grey, not only I get out immediately without even trying, but I actually get pretty mad because putting aesthetic in front of usability is something that really drives me nuts. Especially considering that eye defects are so common, so it's not like it's a matter of taking into account a tiny percentage of the population, and that I swear that I've seen sites that could only be readable by someone with perfect vision, and that's just not okay.

I hope that people that do that aren't as malicious as I fear. I hope it's just that they are unaware, and not that they know that some people won't be able to see shit but screw them.

As a side note, I thought the itty bitty fonts had died like, ten years ago. They seem to have come back with tumblr, somehow. Go figure.
Actually, I still see these "itty bitty fonts" on shrines even today (and I'm talking about the ones currently updated months or a year ago, not some 10+ years ago). I even remember back in those old WPR days where I was marked as a negative by the reviewer for having a text "too big," and I was using either 12px Tahoma or 12px Trebuchet MS back in the days, and that the text "interrupts" the layout design. >.> *sigh*
Oh my gosh, yes. My sites back in the day all had super small text. I remember actually using an html code for "-1" Arial on some fanlistings I made (that's points, not pixels, obviously, ha ha). I also used to totally do white or basically neon text on black a lot. Or, I'd do the old early 2000s thing of the background and text being basically the same color, just one a couple of notches darker or lighter.

What the heck was I thinking?

I OBSESS over colors, contrast, font size (anything below 12 pixels makes me twitch -- I'm old now, I guess) and the like nowadays. Mostly to avoid repeating my old mistakes. Actually, I'm working on the Wham! fanlisting right now (yes... Wham!, as in the group from the 80s George Michael was in). I've been completely obsessing with the colors. I've changed them probably hundreds of times (if you add up links, background, text... the text color is what has messed with me most).

Hi! I'm Patricia.

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dubiousdisc
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Re: Text/background colors?

Post by dubiousdisc »

Huh, I'd never heard of vector fonts!

I personally try to take into account some of that, but I'd say to keep in mind if it's worth it for your audience - as in, how many people actually access your sites through mobile devices.
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