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Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

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Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#21

Post by enjo »

MrVandemar wrote: post #14

My contention is that not only web-designers, but everyone who uses a word processor should get at least baseline training in typography and layout. It should be a short high-school course. The basic rules are not that hard. It's possible to make decent looking documents in Microsoft Word / Libre Office / Abiword / whatever, but people with no idea what they're doing (and no idea that they have no idea what they're d…

One of the best programming lessons I've learned was actually an attempt I made to learn something about design. Typography (which deals quite a lot with the presentation of information hierarchies) is an essential skill in making code actually readable. It gives you a framework for thinking about how to draw a readers attention to the places you want and how to signal that it is important. Which you can do even with tabs and plain-text.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#23

Post by jwells89 »

dkarras wrote: post #9

It is a bit ironic that the website has white text on black background which is no-no on screens as the very high contrast creates ghosting and eye strain / hurt for many people. Carefully read the text, then look at anywhere else and you'll see ghost lines everywhere for a few minutes. So the text should at least be gray-ish to decrease the contrast if you want to go that way. This works pretty well on paper, but su…

I think this varies between individuals.

In my case, it’s not unusual for white on black to be more comfortably readable than the opposite, depending on ambient lighting, screen panel type, type of device, etc. As such I greatly appreciate it when sites provide a light/dark toggle or at least work well with reader mode, which I can tune to fit my needs.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#24

Post by zerocrates »

brailsafe wrote: post #15
kderbe wrote: post #4

(2006) In case you, like me, miss the dateline at the top and become more and more puzzled by the arguments and examples presented. I will credit the article for using examples that are still visually appealing today, even (especially?) the 2004 blog.

Which arguments did you find puzzling? Everything seemed pretty relevant to me

I'd say the big standout would be the section on having only a few fonts to choose from, odd both in the current context generally where there's now a paralyzingly large number of fonts to choose from as a web designer, and also in the specific context of being presented on a site that's clearly using webfonts.

The Internet Archive's closest look at the original [1] isn't quite from the day of but it's probably the same styling: a classic "Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif" font stack.

The grandparent comment called out the usage of still-appealing examples, but the original itself viewed in its original style is a good example as well, and really a better illustration of the post's point. Despite using a single "default" font, simple things like the choices of text width, line height, and differences in size, weight, and spacing of the headings have kept it attractive and readable.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070628195031/https://informati...

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#25

Post by brailsafe »

zerocrates wrote: post #24
brailsafe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which arguments did you find puzzling? Everything seemed pretty relevant to me

I'd say the big standout would be the section on having only a few fonts to choose from, odd both in the current context generally where there's now a paralyzingly large number of fonts to choose from as a web designer, and also in the specific context of being presented on a site that's clearly using webfonts. The Internet Archive's closest look at the original [1] isn't quite from the day of but it's probably the s…

Ah yes, quite a lot has happened in webfont space since then. Their original layout is a great argument for having a sense of grid systems and page layout, especially being long-before sophisticated grid css would come to browsers.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#26

Post by zerocrates »

dkarras wrote: post #9

It is a bit ironic that the website has white text on black background which is no-no on screens as the very high contrast creates ghosting and eye strain / hurt for many people. Carefully read the text, then look at anywhere else and you'll see ghost lines everywhere for a few minutes. So the text should at least be gray-ish to decrease the contrast if you want to go that way. This works pretty well on paper, but su…

That's a "prefers-color-scheme: dark" style: if your machine is set to light mode then it's black on white, well okay, very dark gray on very light gray. (Also the text in dark mode is slightly gray but it's very slight).

I don't think it's totally crazy to present text like this to users who are advertising a preference for white-on-black (though of course there's an argument to be made about the difference between "dark" as a UI choice and a content choice... really this feels like something your browser should let you opt out of despite your OS colorscheme choice).

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#27

Post by BetaPictoris »

zerocrates wrote: post #24
brailsafe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which arguments did you find puzzling? Everything seemed pretty relevant to me

I'd say the big standout would be the section on having only a few fonts to choose from, odd both in the current context generally where there's now a paralyzingly large number of fonts to choose from as a web designer, and also in the specific context of being presented on a site that's clearly using webfonts. The Internet Archive's closest look at the original [1] isn't quite from the day of but it's probably the s…

Is it just me or does the original look much better? I think it's the text size, but also the spacing of the new version just feels... wasted.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#28

Post by zerocrates »

MrVandemar wrote: post #14

My contention is that not only web-designers, but everyone who uses a word processor should get at least baseline training in typography and layout. It should be a short high-school course. The basic rules are not that hard. It's possible to make decent looking documents in Microsoft Word / Libre Office / Abiword / whatever, but people with no idea what they're doing (and no idea that they have no idea what they're d…

Beyond the choices of what to do with them, word processors also don't really try to educate or nudge users into how to do things. "Typewriter"-type usage, where the user makes all their changes directly as they type or on small selections, is still the dominant pattern of actual user behavior when the system is really built on shared styles geared to allowing you to make document-wide changes all at once.

Ignoring that system makes perfect sense in some cases, but the "magic" that Word and friends use to try to coax some of your input into styles is a constant source of frustration and confusion both for people who do and don't want to bother with styles.

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#29

Post by thrwy_918 »

xnx wrote: post #12

Typography should be left to the user agent and user style sheet. Attempts to make sites "pixel perfect" is the worst habit from the print-world that designers brought online with them.

what percentage of users would you estimate are interested in choosing or writing a user style sheet?

Re: Web designers should get good training in typography (2006)

#30

Post by userbinator »

dkarras wrote: post #9

It is a bit ironic that the website has white text on black background which is no-no on screens as the very high contrast creates ghosting and eye strain / hurt for many people. Carefully read the text, then look at anywhere else and you'll see ghost lines everywhere for a few minutes. So the text should at least be gray-ish to decrease the contrast if you want to go that way. This works pretty well on paper, but su…

Turn your monitor's brightness down.

Those of us who have monitors which aren't left at eye-bleedingly-bright defaults shouldn't have to suffer low contrast text (which is much harder to fix).

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