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Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

kaikkonendesign.fi

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Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#31

Post by arrrg »

I'm always conflicted on reducing contrast by making the text very slightly grey instead of black (or the background very slightly grey instead of white).

The problem with this is, as so many times, that on the web you have no control over what people use to display your content. On an awesome display with tons of contrast I would very much agree: straight black on straight white can be unnecessarily harsh and toning it down a bit (a bit being important here) makes everything look more pleasant.

However, on a bad display with low contrast further reducing contrast can be a bad idea.

On balance I would argue that screen technology is by now good enough to allow for slight reductions in contrast that at least have no ill effects in the vast majority of cases and have a positive effect on above average displays.

Oh, and another advantage of not using straight white or straight black is that you can add color (a slight tint, don't touch color if you are inexperienced) to it.

(Also, I would recommend searching out the worst display you can find to test your designs. That helps with more than just whether you picked the right contrast.)

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#33

Post by pknight »

Silhouette wrote: post #11
josscrowcroft wrote: post #8

This is just lovely and very well-timed for people starting new year's resolution blogs next month :) Congratulations to the author. Would supplement it with this: http://www.pearsonified.com/2011/12/golden-ratio-typography.... And the super-handy related tool: http://www.pearsonified.com/typography/

As someone with a background in both mathematics and typography, I'm still trying to figure out how people come up with that sort of nonsense. There are times when constants like the Golden Ratio are relevant and the exact value matters or some useful property doesn't apply. This is not one of those times. There is absolutely nothing "perfect" or "optimal" about the typography you'll create from this "solid mathemati…

What a poor comment and wholly unnecessary. Even though I agree that the golden ratio article here is fanciful to a fault, the whole premise here is to put some thought into typography and calibrate text to look its best.

The math here is entirely relevant: knowing what the measure / font size should be, or at least figuring out minimum and maximum dimensions, that makes a difference. Got a responsive text container? Make sure it doesn't become hard to read. And the type of font you use (different fonts have different metrics, character widths, etc) makes a difference, it adds considerations that can lead to better design. People should put more thought into making their texts as readable as possible - it benefits everyone.

The waxing lyrical about golden ratios is a cheap way to drive interest and add allure, it gets the eyeballs. I think it's clever and it makes an otherwise dull topic interesting .

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#34

Post by harlanlewis »

arrrg wrote: post #31

I'm always conflicted on reducing contrast by making the text very slightly grey instead of black (or the background very slightly grey instead of white). The problem with this is, as so many times, that on the web you have no control over what people use to display your content. On an awesome display with tons of contrast I would very much agree: straight black on straight white can be unnecessarily harsh and toning…

I don't know much of the science behind this, but monitor backlights tend to exaggerate pure whites and blacks, artificially creating contrast that wouldn't be expected by simply looking at the color value.

This becomes especially visible if the user is in low-light conditions (eg in a dark room). The apparent difference between blinding white light (hsl(0,0,100)) and a lukewarm almost-white (hsl(30,10,96)) can be startling.

http://hslpicker.com/#ffffff (0, 0, 100) http://hslpicker.com/#F6F5F4 (30,10, 96)

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#35

Post by paulmckeever »

lifeformed wrote: post #18

Can anyone give some tips for using text on a dark background?

A good general rule of thumb is to use a heavier weight for the light text, which makes it more legible. You might also think about picking a typeface which has good contrast in the letterforms in this kind of situation.

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#36

Post by zootm »

cfontes wrote: post #4

Very nice... Also I am very happy to see that Twitter Bootstrap has a lot of the things in this site already there.

This is true, although I find the default body text size in Bootstrap way too small, and often wonder if others do too. It seems to fit the "text wedged into elements of a Web tool" use-case it originates from better than longer body text.

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#37

Post by stan_rogers »

arrrg wrote: post #31

I'm always conflicted on reducing contrast by making the text very slightly grey instead of black (or the background very slightly grey instead of white). The problem with this is, as so many times, that on the web you have no control over what people use to display your content. On an awesome display with tons of contrast I would very much agree: straight black on straight white can be unnecessarily harsh and toning…

On an even awsomer and properly calibrated display, it also reduces the contrast below acceptable levels a lot of the time. (The high brightness sells in the stores, but it's pretty horrible for actual use.)

Re: Interactive Guide to Blog Typography

#38

Post by arrrg »

stan_rogers wrote: post #37
arrrg wrote: post #31

I'm always conflicted on reducing contrast by making the text very slightly grey instead of black (or the background very slightly grey instead of white). The problem with this is, as so many times, that on the web you have no control over what people use to display your content. On an awesome display with tons of contrast I would very much agree: straight black on straight white can be unnecessarily harsh and toning…

On an even awsomer and properly calibrated display, it also reduces the contrast below acceptable levels a lot of the time. (The high brightness sells in the stores, but it's pretty horrible for actual use.)

I was also talking about properly calibrated displays. I should know. I’m using one. (Though realistically, no one uses a calibrated display. They can be ignored for all intents and purposes.)

I find that if you use a good display, straight black on straight white is just too harsh for me. Slight reductions in contrast do most certainly not and never will lower the contrast below acceptable levels on those displays. They do have the ability to display plenty of contrast for the human eye to work with.

(Did you only want to annoy me with your pedantry or what’s going on with you?)

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