Not a member? Why not join us or log in? (No more hassle filling in comments, less obtrusive ads and asides.)

A Darker Web?

Posted by Derek Brown on December 18th, 2005.


http://www.desertfather.com

Derek Brown has posted 3 articles.

RSS Feed for fadtastic.net RSS Feed for Derek Brown

Full Profile →

Browsing through some of the upcoming websites at the Museum of Modern Betas, I noticed something a little, well, different. Many of the new ‘Web 2.0′ pages were getting darker. As in color. As in black. As in very little white. See for yourself:

But then I began to think: is this just the tip of the iceberg of things to come, or simply a handful of sites with a gimmick color? Personally, I like the black if not overdone. But I do not see it becoming even 25% of the internet’s pages simply for readability and usability issues.

White fonts, over a period of time, mess with the eyes even more so than a black font does on a computer screen. Even with the recent trend of “Fisher-Price” (big fonts and buttons), black-based themes simply will not catch fire. But that’s my take. What’s your opinion?

Share This

Make A Comment

( 20 so far )

blockquote and a tags work here.

20 Responses to A Darker Web?

Comments RSS Feed

I don’t think black is a gimmick colour. ‘whitespace’ was the buzz word of a few months back and I don’t think its going to change to ‘backspace’. Dark Eye is a graphically oriented site and we all know images/colours show up best against a black background so it was the obvious choice for the site.

I think it’s a growing trend, though the other sites you have mentioned all have dark backgrounds but the foregrounds are black text on back backgrounds (with the exception of Dark Eye) and as they are text driven that makes perfect sense.

Mike`
December 18th, 2005
#

Granted, Dark Eye’s choice of black was definitely warranted given their content. But the others, and a number of other sites not mentioned (an increasing number of blogs and personal sites), could just as easily gone with another scheme. I think black was chosen not for functionality, such as in the case of Dark Eye, but rather to gather attention. To be different. That is what it’s all about. Just my take. Thanks for the comment! Good insight, Mike.

Derek Brown
December 19th, 2005
#

This has been a criticism of my design for the upcoming Mixtaping.com. I’ve changed a few things around to make it more pleasing to the eye - stronger link and title colours, using #ccc instead of #fff for the main text, narrowing the main text area, etc.

For all practical purposes, I think the darker colour scheme is a nice one. Maybe it’ll just take some time to get used to.

Remember, for a time, anything other than blue-links and purple-visitedlinks was considered such that they messed with the eyes. :)

Phil Renaud
December 19th, 2005
#

I think dark color adds some sophistication to a site. It’s kind of the opposite of informative and straight-forward. Darker colors often convey creativity or something off-beat. Personally, I like the dark colors but don’t see them as overtaking the web.

Josh
December 19th, 2005
#

Josh pretty much sums up my personal opinion. It’s nice, but nowhere near something that can be accepted as standard. If done correctly, and readable, dark looks nice.

Derek Brown
December 19th, 2005
#

Was your little badge at the top chosen to perform a function? Sometimes designers make decisions for aesthetic reasons only. I think as long as it’s not detracting from the overall usability of the page, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Beth
December 19th, 2005
#

Which badge? I’m so confused. Someone help. :)

Derek Brown
December 19th, 2005
#

The fadtastic badge (I assume you mean that one) highlights one of the hot trends around at the moment.

Andrew Faulkner
December 19th, 2005
#

The fadtastic badge does have a purpose other than aesthetics: not only does it provide a aesthetically-pleasing link home, but it unites the colors of the header and the body. Otherwise, there would be a “demarcation” between the blue and green. With the badge, the palette becomes more fluid.

Derek Brown
December 19th, 2005
#

heh I knew it bill be back again - so I made the background on mcville.et a bit blacky :D

Marko
December 19th, 2005
#

hi,

I just noticed that the comment form in IE is in a different place than Firefox.

just curious, why is that?

cristian
December 20th, 2005
#

I just noticed that the comment form in IE is in a different place than Firefox.

The fixed commmenting system doesn’t work in IE at the moment so rather than having to scroll to the top every time I kepth the old commments in for IE. I’m working on a fixed system for IE too.

Now let’s get back on track… ;)

Andrew Faulkner
December 20th, 2005
#

Another thing to consider: Dark Websites show up differently depending on what type of monitor you’re using.

For example, an LCD or Plasma monitor is very good with dark colours, and you can easily differentiate between #000 and #111. With a CRT or full monitor setup, you really can’t.

The CRT, however, is much more observant of slight variations in white/light colours, where the LCD/Plasma is not.

Just food for thought.

Phil Renaud
December 20th, 2005
#

Phil, you bring up a very good point. I’ve recently made our site a bit darker, and just noticed that it’s tough to differentiate rows in our AJAX archives on my CRT - yet it looks awesome on my Powerbook.

I don’t know if dark is the new white, but I sure do like it.

Yas
December 20th, 2005
#

Just as an aside: what do you guys think about brown? I am switching my site to a blue/brown scheme, and just wondering

Derek Brown
December 21st, 2005
#

Yas,

I’d definitely have the text white (or as near to white as you’ll allow.)

- - - - -

Derek,

If using a dark brown (chocolate) background then go for white text. If using a light creamy brown then go for black/dark brown.

- - - - -

Any other advice for these two?

Andrew Faulkner
December 21st, 2005
#

On my site I started out with what was best for me to read - light grey font on darker grey background. Then I used a style switcher so others could choose 3 other colour combinations. I also ran a little survey and published the results the other day. Check it out. You may be surprised that two-thirds preferred light font on dark background. I am not exactly sure why but I think it probably has more to do with glare and comfort than it has to do with style and cool. I’d like to see someone who gets loads of visitors to run a similar survey.

Peter
December 23rd, 2005
#

I realy like it.Your advices are very interesting.

Custom Web Design Company
December 23rd, 2005
#

The fadtastic badge does have a purpose other than aesthetics: not only does it provide a aesthetically-pleasing link home, but it unites the colors of the header and the body. Otherwise, there would be a “demarcation” between the blue and green. With the badge, the palette becomes more fluid.

wow you really art spoke your way out of that one ;)

I like black for its aesthetics appeal nothing else.

david
December 25th, 2005
#

I wonder if there’s any empirical evidence yet, but I’m hearing from readers that it’s easier to read long bits of text off a screen when the text is light and the backgroudn dark (the opposite obviously of reading off paper).

It might be another bit of counter-intuition in the migration of design standards from print to screen–similar to how designers of text-heavy websites are still coming to terms with using sans-serif types, a reality on-screen which completely contradicts print conventions.

Andrew
January 11th, 2006
#

↑ Jump up to the comment form

Related In Some Way, Shape Or Form

The above post has obviously kept you amused. Why not discover similar material:

The posts Break Out the Earth Tones, Does sex still sell?, are related to this post.

Or why not take time out to find out about the author of the post.