I'm thinking about a site update -- or rather, about completing the last one.
What always happens is this: When faced with a deadline on a project I don't want to do, I suddenly decide to fix the way this site looks. Usually, I try out about three or four different ideas. About half-way through, the client calls me all cranky and angry, asking "Where the hell is that thing I'm paying you for?" And so I stop the site upgrade in medias res.
As a result, Cannonfire has always looked pretty crummy, what with five or six different fonts going on.
My long-term goal is to create a blog that looks like it might have been designed in the 19th century. So I am experimenting with Garamond, which is a typeface from ye olden days. But perhaps the readability has been damaged.
(NOTE: I've switched back to Times Roman -- for now.)
I'm also thinking of going to a two column design. They're in again. Not long ago, three column was the ideal. I hate changing fashions.
(As you might have guessed, I have a project that I should be doing...)
21 comments:
1. Maybe try for a Thomas Nast look? (In which case perhaps Goudy rather than Garamond.
2. Please, no multiple columns. They're hard to read.
If all goes well, I want to give the impression that this blog has been the "go to" place for discussion of top-quality foily material since the days when the Comte de Chambord was scheming to unravel the Third Republic.
Garamond is fine, but the straight apostrophe is jarring.
—g.
Website designers state that columns that are wider than 8-12 words are hard to read since the eyes have to be scanning across the page over and over, and most people aren't going to put their finger on the screen to follow the line the way they might do for a book.
Speaking of which, newspapers and magazines are specifically designed with narrow columns for easier readability.
I like the new font. It caught my eye immediately - in a good way.
Have you considered grabbing a design from ElegantThemes, ThemeForest or WooThemes? You can get one already coded (saving an awful lot of work) and you can customize it like crazy when you have the free time.
Well if you wanted it to look old it could be like an old bible with elaborate illustrations with each page, and each posting would be another page, which turned a you wanted to move forward and backwards. Etc.
It would mean a lot more work for you to illustrate every topic but I don't mind :)
Oh God, Joe. Go Baaaaack.
This Large IN YOUR FACE FONT is jarring and offensive. Skip the multiple columns, too.
It's already three columns...
Black on stark white hurts my eyes. Would you consider a background that suggests parchment? I think multiple columns are too trendy and make the reader expend effort, but in the wrong way.
I'm not a fan of Garamond, so I hope you will find another font. I think I know what you are aiming for (I'll have to read up on the Comte de Chambord). Blackadder would alienate everyone but the most devoted follower.
Try New Century School Book. It is the most readable font ever. But it takes a lot of space.
No columns. No Garamond. (My stepdaughter, who was trained as a graphic designer, says that Garamond is her favorite fallback when she can't think what type style to use.) Personally, I find serif type easier to read.
grayslady
As I said: The blog is already three columns. All blogs are multi-column. The main text is in the central column.
I'm kind of stuck when it comes to body text because online one has only a few choices -- Times Roman, Garamond, Arial, Courier and not much else. If this were print, the choices would be much larger. Times Roman was invented in the 1930s or 20s, if memory serves.
The Comte de Chamford was a strange French aristocrat who was the heir to the Bourbon throne, if the Bourbons still HAD a throne. He was offered the position of "King of France" after the fall of Napoleon III, but he insisted on being an absolute ruler -- no Parliaments. He also had a barren wife to whom he remained devoted.
So he didn't get the job, and France became a republic. But for years afterward, he and his followers schemed to return the monarchy to France. Most of the "weird politics" of that period can be traced to this effort.
There's a theory, which I favor, that Berenger Sauniere -- the mystery priest of Rennes-le-Chateau -- was entrusted with a secret slush fund which the monarchists had compiled to stage a coup. His "wealth" was really a matter of dipping into the fund for his personal projects.
Or so runs the theory. There's no hard evidence for it. But there's a certain amount of circumstantial evidence.
On the multicolumn issue I believe what everyone was complaining about is posts/articles that extend across multicolumns since we've all grown accustomed to having more or less static information on left and right columns. Too bad you can't jpeg your way to a Chancery font for posting-- that would really get everyone's eyes crossed.
Wellllll, I would think a serif font would be more vintage or classic looking. I have to say, as much as it's fun for me to be able to read your site without reading glasses, I have to agree with the slacker... the new look is jarring. The font is too large.
I have to take strong exception to LiVo's distaste for black on white. Maybe a "parchment" color would work, but only if it were faint. Classic black on white is the best choice. If there is one thing I detest it's chic color experimentation at the expense of legibility. Particularly if the font is anything except black.
I'm going to make the font a bit smaller but will keep in Garamond for just a bit longer.
Rober Ebert's site has black-on-beige text. Seems to work.
Remember the early days of the net? Circa 1995, you saw all of these articles which insisted that black on white was just ghastly and in terrible taste!
Joe, you could write this thing in crayon and It'd still be my first stop every morning.
Joe, do the job. Then the site.
Take it from a professional procrastinator. It'll save you an ulcer, you'll sleep better, and you'll enjoy working on the site more.
rompadinker
It's not already three columns, it's two tiny columns and one really big column.
If possible, you should consider shrinking the main column somewhat. I stated 8-12 words as being considered a guide, anything over 15 words wide is obnoxious.
I remember what used to be ghastly about the bad old days online. White on black background. The white on black faction should be shot. And the garish colors. And the colors that didn't even register on certain browsers so you could not even see the font! Sometimes you had to "highlight" all the font to see it at all. The only reason I would do it at all was to find a contact person to write to and tell them why I would never be back to read a word they wrote.
It's not just the internet where poor choices are made-- one of the mags I read every month loves to show how hip they are by using a black background and a dark green font. Other nearly illegible combinations are used routinely to enhance coolness, I suppose.
Checked out Roger Ebert's site, I thought it was very readable. My thoughts about black on white has less to do with taste -- it has to do with my eyes getting tired and watery if I'm reading more than a half hour at a time. But that's about all I can take at a time of reading my frequent stops before my blood pressure shoots up and I have to step away.
I'm enjoying Calibri lately, but I'll probably be off that kick before too long.
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