A Gentle, Good-Natured, and Hopefully Persuasive Note To Some Of My Favourite Bloggers

You know that book you picked up the other day, the New York Times Best-seller with the black pages and the red type inside?  Oh, wait, no, maybe it was navy blue pages and black type.  Or red background and pink type.

No?  You don't remember that book?  Well, may I suggest to you that it's because the publishing industry kinda knows what works and what doesn't work, visually speaking.  And they know that as boring as it is, the easiest format on the human eyes is a light background and black type.  Like, say black on white ... or buff ... or ivory.

People of the Blogiverse:  please take note.

I know you want to be creative, and I know you want your blog to look good.  We all do, dear.  But what good is it if people think "Nice looking blog - damn, I wish I could read it."?

It's not JUST that I'm old, although that certainly might be weighing into it.  But honestly, sometimes I have to squint to read your blog - especially if there is glare on the screen.  And when that happens, as often as not, I'll just move to the next blog on my list.  Maybe you had a great post that day, maybe not.  I'll never know.  And if I, who love your stuff, am moving on, how many others who are visiting for the first time are saying "Yoiks - (s)he's not worth the migraine."?

Look at the blogs you love.  I would guess that most, if not all of them are black on light.  Look at the blogs and sites designed by pros.  Black on light.  Feel the pattern, baby.

Look, I respect your creative urges.  But I respectfully suggest you channel them into your writing (which is wonderful, or else I wouldn't be there), or your photography (which, ditto).  Eschew creativity in backgrounds, font colour, or the font itself. 

I look like crap when I squint.  And I'm homely enough to start. 

Spare us all.  Thank you.

Comments

[Effie]

squinting with colour issues? Yup--I've had that issue meself on occasion and almost had that prob with my blog, but it's better now.

[Mad Maggot]

Absolutely agree with you. Light background and dark font are the easiest to read and basically, blogs with such layouts are the only ones I follow. The ones with pink background and yellow font color are too hard to read and I just have to skip them, because I squint enough when I read my own handwriting... online I expect everything I read to be distincty displayed on my monitor.

[The Kept Woman]

(raises hand guiltily)

Now if I had more knowledge of code and creating a template this would be an easy task...I,though, am what you might refer to as a Techno-Retard. I can copy code, do little modifications and that's all she wrote. I will try to mess with it.

Otherwise I can post in EXTRA LARGE FONT for you! ;) (kidding, kidding...please don't throw that book with the nice white pages and dark font at me!!!)

[Nils]

Oh, TKW .. you're safe from the book-throwing. And hey, I'll never identify anyone specifically, but if you want to raise your hand, feel free.

I understand it's tough when you don't know code. God, if only we *coughKristinecough* knew someone who had a reputation *coughKristinecough* for pimping blogs ... you'd think this would be a simple job for someone with that talent ...

[wordgirl]

Oh dear. I think I heard my name called. Sort of.

[Nils]

*whistles breezily*

[whfropera]

allright already!! I can take a hint - I thought white text on black was easy to read?

[Nils]

*whistles Nessun Dorma breezily*

[Laura]

you've got to stop reading those teenaged xanga and myspace blogs. (g)

[Dawn]

I've seen a few light background with even lighter font. Cant read it at all.

[Squirl]

My blog is one of the regular templates in blogger. It's a dark gray on white. How is that to read.

Bucky volunteered to do up a special one for me. The main reason I'd like a new one is so that I can post my pictures in, at least, the Flickr medium size. The postage stamp size that I use now doesn't show much detail.

Maybe now that Bucky's getting settled in I'll work with her on it. But it will be dark font on a light background.

[whfropera]

so you're telling me to go without sleep to design a new blog template?
although the Princess part of it is rather appropriate - I don't hear that enough every day!

[Nils]

Hehehe WTF ... and everybody else is going "Wha'? Huh?" Not many who catch operatic references anymore. more's the pity.

Squirl, yours in not at all hard to read - you call it a grey, but your font looks plenty dark enough to me.

And Laura, dear Laura ... I've heard about this MySpace thing and Xanga ... but of course, they're dominated by children. I prefer to spend my time with people who are older ...

[Bucky Four-Eyes]

My eyes DEFINITELY prefer dark text on light background, though I don't have too much trouble with white text on a black b'ground either.

When I restyle my crib, the one factor that never, ever changes is the black text on white background for the text of the posts themselves, in Arial font. If I can read it painlessly with my lousy eyes, I think it should be pretty viewable by anyone else who drops by.

[Nils]

I think we should all listen to Bucky. She's all about going easy on the eyes.

[laura]

I can't do anything with mine (know nothing about computers AT ALL) and used the most lame boring thingy I could see. I don't even know how to add my photo to my profile, or add links or fave blogs on the side or anything. *sniff* My husband could help me, if I ever remembered to ask him for help.

Let me go ask him now, before I forget. Amanda B opened my eyes to the fact that I may have ADD, do you remember?? I have so many things going on at once!

Maybe that is another reason my blog is so plain...my life is not!! I need simple on some level at least.

Have a great day!

[Closet Metro]

I have mine super-plain for readability and fast download.

[MrsDoF]

One of my pet peeves is having the latest Comment be at the top of the page and the first is at the bottom.
It means that a response to previous seems out of order for the natural inclination to scroll down to read the good stuff.

[William]

Thank you, Nils, for this blogger service announcement.

[cat]

Dude... I just wanted to tell you I finally watched American Idol, but now I'm feeling totally self-conscious and inadequate as a blogger.

*rushes off to check readability factor*

[Nils]

Cat's being too modest. Her AI recaps are brilliant.

[Tanya]

THANK YOU! I have been wanting to leave some people a message and ask them if THEY ever look at their own blog.

You just made me check my blog. Am now debating a background change....

[Neil]

That was so funny. I'm no sure why no one has made this statement before. As someone who has worn glasses since second grade, my vision just gets worse and worse reading blogs every day. I think I smell a discrimination lawsuit against the blogosphere (by those over-35 with lousy vision) concerning all those tiny fonts and red lettering on green backgrounds.