As has been hinted in several posts recently I’ve been contemplating some changes to the site. And as always when I contemplate such changes I run up against one of the major web design dilemmas: Black on White, or White on Black. (Alternately Black on Light, or White on Dark).
I’m actually quite attracted to White on Black. I’ve recently reset Konsole to that setting and I like it. For that matter I even think my site doesn’t look too bad in Lynx with this setting.1 But there’s always a nagging doubt in the back of my mind when I contemplate White on Black. One of the major rules of webdesign is “when in doubt follow the big boys”, and I can’t think of any big site that goes for this colour scheme off the top of my head.
And there’s another worry: font rendering. A lot of font rendering packages are, to my mind, biased towards rendering dark text on a light background. On my own site as it is now I only have to look at the black bars that the top and bottom of the page. The white text in those bars is (on my system) anti-aliased the wrong way around.
Normally the surrounding pixels should be altered to match the pixels. With black on white some of the white is turned grey to fill out the letter. Unfortunately with white on black my system still chooses to turn the white pixels grey rather than the black ones. It still improves the apparent shape of the letter, but it sacrifices contrast.
Right now I don’t even know for sure when I’m going to have time to do anything about sitting down for a full redesign, but this dilemma is one of the things I’m going to have to deal with before I can put it into action.
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1 More on Konsole and Lynx
I had some of the same thoughts when I was planning the re-design of my page (off topic: I don’t visit your blog for 20 hours and you manage to write that many interesting posts, sheesh!).
As you have obviously seen, I decided to stick with the majority and have the black letters on the white background. One of the major reasons for that was that I wanted it to have a “magazine” look and not too unusual. But I chose a very dark gray for the background of my page itself because I found that it is not so tiring for your eyes.
Now, do I understand you correctly that you intend to (maybe) have the background for your text black and the text itself white? If that is the case … hmmmm. I don’t know. If it is rendered as you Copyright notice on the bottom left is rendered, that will hurt everyones eyes quite a bit (as you have already mentioned). I can send you a screenshot if you like.
What about not using such an extreme contrast? Black and white are on opposing ends of the spectrum, but what about using a dark gray and white?
First of all, thanks on the compliments on the posts. I guess I was struck by blogger inspiration or something.
And yes, part of me is tempted to switch to a black background (actually a mostly black background image) with white text. I love the feel of that combination, or would if the bloody text would render properly.
I may have a go at white on dark grey, though I have to say I’m disposed to be a little sceptical about it. Whenever I see a site that does the opposite dark gray (#333333) text on a white background I tend to feel it looks a bit pale compared to proper black lettering.
For that matter I’ve never been truly satisfied with the central background in my current design, precisely because it doesn’t offer enough contrast for my tastes.
You’re very welcome.
And I just fired up PS and created a document with #333333 as background and white text. It doesn’t look too bad, it makes for a nice and unusual contrast. But I guess I have been in front of my screen for too long already today because after some seconds the texts seems to blur.I will take a look at it tomorrow morning, it _should_ look better by then (or I need to go see a doctor).
Oh, and concerning what you said in your entry: after all, this is your personal blog so I wouldn’t see a reason why should have to stick to common designs. After all, this is about having fun and if we can’t design our own blogs the way we like them, then we probably didn’t grasp the concept
I wouldn’t go just by PS for the rendering if I were you. White on Black renders fine for me if I fire up the GIMP for a test. The problem comes when it’s handed over to a general purpose font-rendering system.
I know, I just was too lazy to write an html file
But it’s not just the rendering issue. If contrasts are too strong, not even PS will make it look good. The contrast between #333333 and #ffffff is okay, but I think (again, that’s just my taste) it shouldn’t be any stronger because then at least my eyesight goes all funny.
Well, my proven method in such cases is: design the blog the way I want it, put it up and wait if someone complains. If not, everything is fine. If yes … well, let’s not go there.
I’ve done a little experiment with a local copy of my front page & CSS and #333333 with #ffffff still strikes me as too little contrast, though #222222 is just about acceptable.
Just to try it out I also went for #000033 with text in #ffffcc which is sort of nice, because I always had wordperfect 5.1 set to yellow on dark blue…