Another Set of Colors »
Well, my wife made a comment about the colors on the blog. It's not so much that her opinion carries more weight (actually, that is much of it), but the fact that she had visited. She probably hasn't read it for weeks. She says I talk to much about "geek stuff". So the fact that she actually came by, and then one of the first couple things she said had to do with the colors, made me decide to change them. Again.
I'm actually using the background colors that I used on the old design, though they look a bit lighter because of the lack of a really dark color (like in the header on the old site). I also tweaked the text colors a bit and changed the font style and size. Hopefully this combination will both be easier on the eye, and last a little while. I hate choosing colors. Not just here. I hate doing it at home too.
I think that the old site probably looked a bit, I don't know, stronger. But you never know. I'm still working on it, and maybe I'll get there one day. In the meantime, I think the new design is starting to give the old one a run for its money, and it's a lot less crowded to boot. Now I just have to fix everything that broke when I changed the size of the text.
Comments (9)
I rather prefer the new colors to the prior ones. I'm also partial to serif style proportional fonts. For my money pure black text on a white background is tops in legibility.
I remember that Microsoft did some research on font readibility on the screen, but I never saw the results. My favorite is Bookman Old Style, but on my blog I use Georgian as it as the largest letters per point size as I could find.
The problem with fonts is, you can only use what your reader has installed.
With RSS feeds becoming more commonplace, I think what one's site looks like will be less important all the time.
Here's a post on RSS and blog content you might find interesting.
Posted by Ted | January 9, 2005 3:56 PM
I go back and forth on serif vs sans, but I think I liked the orange vs the pale beige ...
Posted by *** Dave | January 9, 2005 10:10 PM
My understanding is that serif fonts are easier to read than sans serif. But those tests were done using 2400 dpi printed materials. I have not seen any legibility numbers for fonts on a video screen.
Posted by Ted | January 10, 2005 7:12 PM
This discussion has got me wondering what is the most readable font on the screen. I've posted five samples here.
Reader input would be appreciated.
Posted by Ted | January 10, 2005 8:14 PM
For me, there's not enough contrast in this new color scheme. The boxes' background color is too close to the page's background color. And the fonts don't seem quite as crisp on the background, perhaps because they're serif or peraps because they're smaller, or maybe both.
Also, my wife and I agree that there's too much geek stuff on your blog. ;-)
But hey, you can't please all of the people all of the time. So pick something that works for most of us and stick with it, and the rest of us will learn to live with it. :-)
Posted by Peter | January 11, 2005 12:14 AM
D'oh... with all of that criticism, I neglected to mention one really cool thing - your entries no longer bleed outside of the boxes when I view your blog in Safari! Hooray! :-)
Posted by Peter | January 11, 2005 12:16 AM
You're right, Peter. Annoying, perhaps, but right. :)
There just wasn't enough contrast. Without the darker colors in the old layout, it was just too bland. I've changed it a bit. Removed the shading between the sections, and brightened the color a bit. Hope it helps. I think I'm done messing with colors for a while!
Posted by Chad Everett | January 11, 2005 7:01 AM
I like the new colors they are much more alive then before and I dont see any problems with contrast.
Posted by alias420 | January 12, 2005 2:48 PM
Who would have thought that general comments to my husband would have generated such a response! I do metrics and process improvement initiatives for my company. In doing software metrics I end up doing a lot of graphs. I have found that men, in general, prefer dark colors because they can't pick out the color differences between pastel colors. I just find this very interesting. As far as fonts, I agree with Ted - I love Bookman Old Style - I actually use this font with all business correspondance.
Posted by Denise Everett | January 12, 2005 7:49 PM