Black background with white text for website?

[timothyallan]

I'm just re-doing my website using Neb's fancy wordpress recommendation, and I was going to do a black with white color scheme. I personally think it works well, but my wife (and others) can't stand the contrast.

Can any of you music web gurus suggest some tips for getting it a bit more readable without completely revamping the layout/color scheme??

http://www.timothyallan.com/

[pulsoc]

NOOOO!

Kills the eyes, why we went from black chalkboards to green, to whiteboards. Human eye strains like a beeyatch with dark background.

[dbungert]

As for the dark background / contrast thing, I think it's a personal thing. You can find many people who dislike it, but you'll find others who prefer it.

For some reason it's considered "more acceptable" for artists of any type to have a dark background instead of light. Don't ask me to explain that one ...

[SolutionG]

There's no golden rule about light vs. dark backgrounds; it really boils down to how you intend to reach your audience, and what you want to communicate to them. You can always use some stylized dark text boxes over a white background, or vice versa. There certainly are a ton of things you can do, but ultimately its all about what YOU like.

Bottom line: no matter what you decide to do, you can't possibly create anything as head-exploding as MIA's site.

http://www.miauk.com/

[mikemc]

If you have a lot of text on the site, then it is not the best choice.

If you have a few labels, where your navigation is via graphics or buttons, then it is not bad.

[edit] yes, you have too much text for it to be black on white, and the resulting eye fatigue (particularly in the age of attention deficit) results in a tldr response. You might try background boxes of a lighter color for your paragraph text (buttery yellow?) with a dark font.

[forge]

your site looks good

[pulsoc]

""People with astigmatism (aproximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye."

or from http://www.sitepoint.com/print/colour-c ... eb-design/

"Black text on a white background is the safest combination and much more legible than white on black"

I don't claim to understand the physics of it, but reading white on black causes significantly more strain on the eyes. Although your website does "look" good, reading it makes my eyes feel like they are being vacuumed out of my head.

[JoshR]

Looks fine to me.

[tjwett]

white on black can be tougher on the eyes, depends on how its used and who's reading it. often you can find a happy medium somewhere in the middle though. shades of grey can be much less harsh and can open up more opportunities for design. i recently redid my consulting site and went from white to dark just for a change and i'm pretty happy with it: http://www.daylitepros.com/

here is some case studies of dark websites:
http://designmeltdown.com/chapters/Black/Part3.aspx

i also recommend checking out some CSS galleries, you'll see a lot of nice dark sites for inspiration. i like http://www.cssmania.com and http://www.webcreme.com

[timothyallan]

Awesome stuff, thanks guys.

I'm going to try and put some lighter bg with darker text blobs for the posts and see how that goes. I'd hate to think that I am making people think that their eyeballs are being vacuumed out hahaha.

As for the artist page comment, I noticed that as well... Most 'artist' and arty farty pages are dark. I wonder if that's because they want to seem mysterious or different than the normal web. Who knows