photography/photographers websites

Sparkles33

Sparkles33

Suspended / Banned
Messages
5,226
Name
Nattelie
Edit My Images
Yes
Why are so many of them in reverse block?! (white writing, black background)

Does anyone else find this particuarly annoying? :thumbsdown:

I have troubles with visual disturbances...so of course photography is the perfect hobby and potential career :suspect: so I can't read writing in reverse block. Other than that, in general, if you're advertising something, it's supposedly statictically proven that fewer people will bother to read more than the first line if it's in reverse block (yep, unfortunately I had a carer in advertising at one point *shudders*) so it completly bamboozles me as to why people choose reverse block in so many of their websites etc.

A black background frame for photographs can be really effective and pretty though! LOL
 
I have no preference but I find white text on a black background easier to read in poor light / night time. There is less glare from the surrounding areas as with white with black text.
 
Mine is white on black, and I chose that because one it looks neater, and two, it is neutral, meaning my photos stand out more.

If I didn't use black I would probably choose either white or 18% grey, the problem with those two is white is too bright, and looks very boring (most web pages are white), and grey would just look odd (and you then have the problem of black or white text, as neither would stand out brilliantly).
 
as above really, i prefer white on black and its looks better, and black on white is boring.

apart from that what other colours could really be used that go well together?
 
I prefer the sites that let you switch white on black and black on white although I'm comfortable with both
 
dont like reading white on black then going to another site which is whitish eg. google - as then all you can see is lines of writing on the white of google burned on to your retinas
 
I thought I would give a more technical answer to this one

There basic principles and rules of typopgraphy that a lot of webdesigners miss. For starters contrast for individual characters is much lower than with white on black. Secondly, ecause of the way anti-alliasing effects the character edges the letters (white on black) tend to dissapear - causing each letter to immediatally look less clear. If you must have white on black, then you need to increase the font size slightly and increase both the leading, tracking. That will make the font more readable.. but.. It wont make the text less tedious on the eye

Unfortunatally, it seems that despite all this, designers insist on really small text, combined with white on black. for the reason cited above, this is a really bad move

The next issue is more about hardware. When printing on paper, ink bleeds. Good graphic designeres know that some fonts are designed to look crisp after the font bleeds. On a CRT because of the way the electron beam scans horizontally - some fonts "bleed horizontally" this is obviously totally different to how a LCD displays each character of a font. Net result - some fonts look great on a CRT, others on a LCD and others on paper. Because the black edge bleeds into the white edge, with white on black, the issue is exaserpated, as the actual character is being altered, not the black space arround it. This means if a designer designs something that looks really crisp on a LCD screen, it can look really muddy on a CRT screen. The oppisite can apply

The next issue is the way different browsers render fonts and colour. Some apply font smoothing, others dont. PC's have global setting for true type fonts and clear type fonts. besides that you can change the system wide DPI setting for fonts. These "I meddled with some settings on my computer 6 months ago" type issues - produces utterly random results on some sites... these settings may just amplify the issue with white on black

The last "killer issue" is using non standard fonts. If you use say "Gill Sans" then only a small percentage of people will have it. If you use a fontstack like "Gill Sans, Arial, Heletica" etc. the chances are that the designer (who has Gill Sans on his system) never actually saw the site in Arial - which is what 99% of the rest of the users will see the site in. By having an "on the edge optimisation" for the first font in the stack one would find it would be sheer luck that the font was "OK" in the second font in the stack - the second font being the font that users may default to if the first font isnt available on thier system
 
MagicMynx said:
Why are so many of them in reverse block?! (white writing, black background)

Does anyone else find this particuarly annoying? :thumbsdown:

I have troubles with visual disturbances...so of course photography is the perfect hobby and potential career :suspect: so I can't read writing in reverse block. Other than that, in general, if you're advertising something, it's supposedly statictically proven that fewer people will bother to read more than the first line if it's in reverse block (yep, unfortunately I had a carer in advertising at one point *shudders*) so it completly bamboozles me as to why people choose reverse block in so many of their websites etc.
Click to expand...

Then you'll love me :lol:

Personally, I prefer text being the brightest element on a page (unless it's red:gag::bang:), switch it around and I'm very likely to get a headache and eye strain.

I do understand your points though and also sympathize, I guess it's quite difficult to please everyone or more importantly, make sure that you catering for all possibilities.

I've not had one complaint, (yet).

MagicMynx said:
A black background frame for photographs can be really effective and pretty though! LOL
Click to expand...

That's another point too, personally I feel white pages appear very 'clinical' and also quite drab.
So, personal preference plays a significant role too.

The be all and end all is the content though - the photographs.
 
Thank you.

The majority of that (Richard's post) is pretty much what was said to me in my advertising training (what I can remember of it anyway! LOL)

Other than that though, there are some medical conditions that mean that certain layouts are impossible to see - and they don't all mean that those conditions are all visual impairements, but some neurological conditions too.

I remember deciding for my websites (not photography related) and agonising over what would be best for the purpose of that site.
 
MagicMynx said:
Why are so many of them in reverse block?! (white writing, black background)

Does anyone else find this particuarly annoying? :thumbsdown:

I have troubles with visual disturbances...so of course photography is the perfect hobby and potential career :suspect: so I can't read writing in reverse block. Other than that, in general, if you're advertising something, it's supposedly statictically proven that fewer people will bother to read more than the first line if it's in reverse block (yep, unfortunately I had a carer in advertising at one point *shudders*) so it completly bamboozles me as to why people choose reverse block in so many of their websites etc.

A black background frame for photographs can be really effective and pretty though! LOL
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to your question, but if you use a mac and ever come across something like this you have trouble reading, try: ctrl-alt- + 8
 
visually/technically dark grey/off white would be one of the preferred choices.
 
alexkidd said:
visually/technically dark grey/off white would be one of the preferred choices.
Click to expand...

That was my own solution. I felt a dark background worked best with displaying photo's and that what I went with because my site was mostly about the photo's, not text.
 
Also, I find the opposite to the OP, although white on black on my site can be a little more difficult to read (mainly the smaller text size), I find dsaker backgrounds and lighter text far better when reading for a prolonged time. I don't get blasted with light and so less eye strain occurs.
 
I've gone with light on dark purely because dark backgrounds are better for framing pictures imo :)
 
I used to find that corporate sites use dark text on a light background and creative sites use light text on a dark background but these days anything goes.

One reason for doing white text on a black background was to discourage people from printing out your website due to the amount of ink it would require.
 
I like seeing dark websites with photos on them, simply because I like the way it looks.
dark framing around a photo seems to highlight most photos better for my eyes.
for general information websites though, where lots of text is required, I normally prefer light backgrounds and dark text.
the above posts make interesting reading though
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top