Personally, I’d kinda prefer a darker theme; black (or dark gray) background with bright lettering (white, silver, or yellow) on the foreground. I also liked things a bit better back when this site had ten posts to a page rather than five.
red
2 years ago
Today’s font looks remarkably like the one on a popular cargo-cult cover design that is always tagged with “FONT BOREDOM”.
I also think the bright white background is too bright for my old eyes, and that the layout has a sort of generic look to it. The pages load much faster than they used to, though.
The ten posts per page is nice but… woo… that’s awfully bright, especially when I’m viewing this site at night! I still say a dark background would be better; maybe something black with a star field? If nothing else, that would be a subtle way to allude (facetiously) to where you’re getting all these bad covers: “These are the bad covers… FROM SPACE!”
Please, please, don’t inspire him to more weird-ass backgrounds. I mean, a nice solid background, fine but that old one made me want to scream every time I visited.
“How about this one?” Nathan asked, somewhere way up there^^^
It might look a little heavy on the book titles, and the letters look as though they are spaced a bit tighter than intended (crowded). Take a look at the word “Possibilities” in Karisanea World, and the apostrophe in Windows of Reality. Long-winded titles really stand out, though! The text below the cover looks pretty light on my machine (one-pixel-wide stems; the text in the edit box is two-pixels, and it looks just fine).
If you don’t mind a couple of suggestions, maybe something like Source Sans Pro or Aller might be worth taking a look at. Source Sans has a SIL license. Aller is similar to that first font but is better drawn and spaced; it is also free, although it has a EULA with some restrictions. Both have several weights.
After the sidebar scrolls by, the gray surround directs my attention to the book covers and helps them stand out. Some of them take on an almost 3-D appearance.
And speaking of 3-D, that bug-eyed mascot would make a good background pattern…
That’s easier to read. The theme seems to be applying a fairly large amount of negative tracking (“letter-spacing”). Source Sans is spaced looser than Roboto, and so appears to be less affected. Roboto looks pretty good at its intended spacing, but when tracked tighter by that much, it looks kind of like a 26-car pileup. (FontSquirrel’s Test Drive should provide a reasonable example of how the fonts should look without any tracking.)
The small font is still 1 pixel “thick”, though, and it’s probably a light weight, to boot. In the comments section, replies to comments are even smaller than the comments.
I can handle a simpler, darker, mono-colored background. It was just that old one, the one that kinda looked like the old carpets (or wallpaper!) at the neighborhood’s old-folks houses, in the 1950s, that drove me bonkers.
I vote that “monotone” should also be adapted and adopted to mean “single color.” I mean, a tone is also a color.
Those are not mutually exclusive.
For the record, I prefer the old design.
Personally, I’d kinda prefer a darker theme; black (or dark gray) background with bright lettering (white, silver, or yellow) on the foreground. I also liked things a bit better back when this site had ten posts to a page rather than five.
Today’s font looks remarkably like the one on a popular cargo-cult cover design that is always tagged with “FONT BOREDOM”.
I also think the bright white background is too bright for my old eyes, and that the layout has a sort of generic look to it. The pages load much faster than they used to, though.
How about this one?
It doesn’t faze me. It’s okay. It took me a bit to adjust to it. I am very grateful that the weird background is gone!!!
The ten posts per page is nice but… woo… that’s awfully bright, especially when I’m viewing this site at night! I still say a dark background would be better; maybe something black with a star field? If nothing else, that would be a subtle way to allude (facetiously) to where you’re getting all these bad covers: “These are the bad covers… FROM SPACE!”
Please, please, don’t inspire him to more weird-ass backgrounds. I mean, a nice solid background, fine but that old one made me want to scream every time I visited.
Aw…
I’m just trying for “clean” this time around. But maybe for today, being April Fool’s…
I really, really hate you, brother.
Try it now.
Are you suddenly feeling a near-death experience coming on?
That’s how I feel all the time.
Oh, sure, entirely undeservedly, I’m certain.
“How about this one?” Nathan asked, somewhere way up there^^^
It might look a little heavy on the book titles, and the letters look as though they are spaced a bit tighter than intended (crowded). Take a look at the word “Possibilities” in Karisanea World, and the apostrophe in Windows of Reality. Long-winded titles really stand out, though! The text below the cover looks pretty light on my machine (one-pixel-wide stems; the text in the edit box is two-pixels, and it looks just fine).
If you don’t mind a couple of suggestions, maybe something like Source Sans Pro or Aller might be worth taking a look at. Source Sans has a SIL license. Aller is similar to that first font but is better drawn and spaced; it is also free, although it has a EULA with some restrictions. Both have several weights.
After the sidebar scrolls by, the gray surround directs my attention to the book covers and helps them stand out. Some of them take on an almost 3-D appearance.
And speaking of 3-D, that bug-eyed mascot would make a good background pattern…
I just switched the main font to Source Sans Pro; tell me what you think. (There isn’t an easy way to change font weight with this theme.)
That’s easier to read. The theme seems to be applying a fairly large amount of negative tracking (“letter-spacing”). Source Sans is spaced looser than Roboto, and so appears to be less affected. Roboto looks pretty good at its intended spacing, but when tracked tighter by that much, it looks kind of like a 26-car pileup. (FontSquirrel’s Test Drive should provide a reasonable example of how the fonts should look without any tracking.)
The small font is still 1 pixel “thick”, though, and it’s probably a light weight, to boot. In the comments section, replies to comments are even smaller than the comments.
I agree with Red, about the tracking on the fonts. It feels much easier to read today.
Tweaked it a bit more, about the same time I made the background a darker blue.
I can handle a simpler, darker, mono-colored background. It was just that old one, the one that kinda looked like the old carpets (or wallpaper!) at the neighborhood’s old-folks houses, in the 1950s, that drove me bonkers.
I vote that “monotone” should also be adapted and adopted to mean “single color.” I mean, a tone is also a color.
Is there any easy way to change the weight of the small fonts from 300 (light) to 400 (normal)?
I’ll see what I can do.
Yes, it’s true–the font weight is definitely a little bit light. I like the look of it, but I can see how it could be hard for some folks to read.