Comments on: FT redesign: modern, readable and accessible

By: Leon

Leon — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:37:47 +0000

Hi Josh, Well, I recognise some of that CSS! You need to add a doctype at the top of your document:

would do. I like the text size and the headings (as I should!) I would validate the CSS—you need to precede classes and IDs with a . and a # respectively. Also, I'm not sure excluding people who use IE is such a good idea (although using another browser is the right thing to do, of course). It's well worth playing around with other people's code, but there are a few good reference sites around as well: try HTML Dog to start with.

By: Josh Curd

Josh Curd — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:51:08 +0000

Hi again Leon (still feels wrong sir!)

I am mainly playing around and doing stuff for myself.

I had decided to make a portfolio, an online kinda cv.

http://www.freewebs.com/kpjjc/portfolio.htm

Look familiar to anything you’ve seen before?

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:31:21 +0000

One of my problems is designing on a monitor that is too small and too dark. I’m forced to check my designs on my work computer, and sometimes I just don’t think about it. I’ll check out the black-on-blue on the big, bright LCD screen at work.

Re: Shakespeare’s Sonnets: I thought the site must have been using obscure fonts I didn’t have, probably black-letter or chancery fonts of one sort or another. But the Firefox Font Finder extension told me that the entire stack is:

font-family: sans-serif;

That’s a bit too minimalist for my taste. The whole site is just laughably bad–too bad, because the site content is worth presenting well.

Here’s my all-time bad design candidate. Warning: strap yourself in before clicking.

HavenWorks. They even offer their services as designers, which is just too funny.

By: Leon

Leon — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:00:32 +0000

Michael, I have to admit that I don't find the blue any less glaring than plain white. I think it's a matter of contrast more than anything else; i.e. you can have too high a contrast as well as too low. That's why dark text on a white background isn't set to color: #000;. Depending on the thickness of the font, anything between #555 and #333 is OK (I'm currently using Lucida Grande/Lucida Sans Unicode, which is quite a 'thick' font and way too dark at #333). As with all web typography, there are a lot of variables involved. Although some choices are objectively bad.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:31:18 +0000

Andrea Gandino definitely belongs to the Cameron Moll school of design. Lovely site, though it could use some right padding.

Here’s the one I did using the light blue background. It’s strictly to contain text and designed for a very small audience, so is very simple in concept and design. Yet it *still* manages to make IE cough.

http://www.iraqtimeline.com/entriesdummies.html

(Leon, note the almost-basic font stack, LOL.)

My favorite bad example of background images comes from some long-gone school site, where the designer thought it would be cool to tile an animated graphic of a biplane swooping at the viewer. You can imagine how usable the page was with a flotilla of Sopwith Camels sweeping at you every five seconds.

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:30:00 +0000

Hi Josh,

To be honest, it’s not something I’ve really bothered with in the past, apart from when I’ve made a footer or sidebar a different colour from the main text. I think it can look a bit murky.

Yes, colour and I have a somewhat difficult relationship. I’m good at words and layout, but images and colour…

Michael – I think background images can be done pretty well, but I’d take a bit of care trying it out.

Josh – any work to link to?

And “Leon” is fine now!

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:06:15 +0000

Josh, I tend to agree. I’ve designed two small sites lately, both using #f0f8ff (aliceblue) as a background color. It’s not exactly an off-white, more of a pastel blue, but I find it very easy to work with both in spinning off a color scheme and, with good-sized sans-serif fonts driving the text, with readability. I used to use a tiled background image that imitated a sheet of paper (white with very light blue striations, very nicely done), but people keep telling me that background images are so 1999….

By: Josh Curd

Josh Curd — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:47:28 +0000

Hi Sir

I do think that changing the background colour is a good idea on a webpage.

In my opinion any light neutral colour could be better than white, a webpage with a white background can be a bit too bright for the eye. The colour can take the edge off of the screen and make the page more readable.

The choice of colour is, really, entierly up to the web designer. So the use of a light pink by FT is a sensable choice if their print version is the same colour.

ps.

I told you a bit of colour could be good on your home page and have noticed a little bit!!!

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:35:27 +0000

The hell with the Guardian. I like big(ger) fonts and lots of whitespace. Not so fond of the pink, though.

The article is done. It’s just a matter of getting the contract signed and faxed back, and the publication finalized. I’ll send you a link if you like.

Hmmm, I’ll do some thinking about a comprehensive Linux stack. Actually, that’s covered somewhat in the article; I’ve tweaked the stacks considerably since you saw the earlier version, and I think the Linux fonts match pretty well with the Mac and Win fonts.

I’d love your advice on redesigning the Commons, but that situation is a snakepit I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Since this is a public blog, let’s just say “personal differences” between the guy supposedly doing the redesign and, well, everyone else. I’ll drop you a line.

By: Leon

Leon — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:06:28 +0000

Hi Michael,

How’s the article coming along?

I can’t really disagree with anything you say: my own article was really just a response to The Guardian’s review of the redesign, which objected to the white space and font sizes the FT deployed. On these terms, I think the FT marks a positive, radical departure from conventional online newspaper design.

I do like the pink, but I’m not so sure that’d be the case across a whole site.

And I know you’re a man who doesn’t like an anaemic font stack I’m still searching for that perfect sans-serif Linux stack: there are just so many variables involved.

Oh, and if you need any help with the History Commons redesign, drop me an email.

Cheers,

Leon