what background and text colours for web pages?

[danny_galaga]

ok, so for some reason people dont like my black text and blue background i use:

http://dannygalaga.com/page2.htm

i honestly find it easy to read, but no one else seems to. i did fix one page for peale:

http://dannygalaga.com/satan.html

i figured that was more his colour 

also, id like to use a nice font for my headings. i used westwood because it was on my pc:

http://dannygalaga.com/

i had no idea that absolutely no one else has it. so whats a font that comes standard on windows that kinda looks like that? and no, i dont want to imbed westwood. look at my sites, does it look like i know what im doing?    the most important thing for me is to impart information. so the only fancy thing i need is background colour and pretty font.

the fanciest i got with a web page is this, and believe it or not i put a lot of thought into the colours!

http://oldman2x.com/

i even made the pics and the little icon thingo in the url and tab whatsit 

so, what background text combos appeal that are easy to read? and fonts?

[boykster]

don't quit your day job?

I actually like your black text on blue background....

[shock_]

Well this stuff is my day job, and I can tell you it's downright offensive.  But content is king, and I've read that site dozens of times now, admittedly through squinted eyes

And although you can read it, it's officially and demonstrably bad, at least in terms of meeting WCAG 1.0 standards (ie, the official stuff)
From: http://juicystudio.com/services/colourcontrast.php - comparing #0000ff (full blue) with #000000 (full black)

The difference in brightness between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 125, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 29.

The difference in colour between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 500, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 255.

Paste this in your page just after <title>How I made a mame cocktail cabinet</title>
and before </head>

Code: [Select]

<style type="text/css" media="screen">

body {
  width:80% !important;
  margin:20px 9%;
}

p, p font,font,td {
  text-align:left;
  line-height:160%;
  font-family:verdana,arial,sans-serif;
  font-weight:normal;
  color:#c5c5c5;
}

a {
  text-decoration:underline;
}

a:link,a:link font {
  color:#c5c5c5;
  font-weight:bold;
}

a:visited,a:visited font {
  color:#999999
}

a:focus,a:focus font,a:hover,a:hover font,a:active,a:active font {
  color:#fff;
  text-decoration:underline;
  background-color:#7777ff;
}
</style>


It won't turn it into anything pretty, but it might be more readable.  Your HTML will still be shudder-inducing but I'll get over it.

As I said though - I love your work anyway - and you once talked me out of running 240VAC through some ball-catches for switching power to my monitor so now we're even  

[danny_galaga]

thanks for that. but, maybe its just me but i find that HARDER to read! i think i might go the black and white route for my danny galaga pages...

that only leaves the question of a cool font that most people have that looks something like westwood. any suggestions?

edit: i think ill go for black background and white text for the text heavy page two of my site. the others ill leave as is...

[shock_]

thanks for that. but, maybe its just me but i find that HARDER to read! i think i might go the black and white route for my danny galaga pages...

that only leaves the question of a cool font that most people have that looks something like westwood. any suggestions?

edit: i think ill go for black background and white text for the text heavy page two of my site. the others ill leave as is...

Henry Ford was certainly onto something with that whole "any color as long as it's black" thing

As for fonts, people don't have squat.    Unless you want to render images for all your headings, or do something very tricky (google for "sifr fonts") you'd better pick something from the standard list: http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

[danny_galaga]

wow. thats a pretty small list, isnt it? no wonder no one has my pretty westwood font. yeah, i made images for the first page or so and that got old pretty quickly. and also, since then ive come to know that maybe my background colour isnt perfect  id have to redo them anytime i changed colours.

thanks for the advice shock.  its good to know that SOMEONE has referred to my page for ideas    im looking forward to checking out your cab in person one day. do yuo have a web page for it yet? ill add it to the list of cabs on my page when you do...

[shock_]

Hope it didn't sound like I had my "elitist ---tallywhacker---" underpants on up there!  But yep, rendering text as images, especially over a background pattern, gets boring really quickly!!  Those blue-background stool photos are the reason I left the blue in that CSS code.  The oldman2x thing is heaps easier to see - coming up with black and white after a lot of thought is still a good outcome... the New York Times can't be wrong ... the guy who designed that even has not just his blog in black and white, but even his dog.  And he's considered a guru.

I haven't got a web page for Calvin yet because a) I've been too lazy to tidy up all the content to go on such a site, and b) I have no clever domain name in mind for it yet.  But I hope to get around to it this year sometime...

Oh, and incidentally, I had just opened that page (the pink one you linked, you know the one) when my wife entered the room the other day.  Let's just say she looked a little concerned, and unsure of what to say...  I just told her it was arcade related and not to worry.  I think my W.A.F. went down a notch Although, she thinks that life-size cardboard nanna is cool, too - so I think you come out even. 

[danny_galaga]

hehe. yes, no offence taken about my earlier attempts (danny galaga). i initially used frontpage express. a friend told me to look at the code after using that program because it tends to generate a lot of superfluous crap. which it did. so after getting it kinda right, i stopped using any program and just fiddled with html in notepad (getting rid of as much stupid looking code as possible) which might be why for instance it lines up nicely on my monitor set up  but not any other variation. but im not too worried about that. i have a few friends who do this sort of thing but you know, if they offered to make a super duper page for me id say no. its kinda cool to see that my effort gets on the first page of google with some relevant search terms (",)

with oldman2x however, i did set out to make something pleasing to the eye (or mine anyway). i downloaded nvu and set out to make everything from scratch. i made the images using the bitmap editor! took hours... but it gives it a sort of pixelated retro look, so i think they turned out well. i also spent a lot of time making the address/tab icon thingo. i hope its recognisable as a geriatric gp2x holding a cane and nursing his back. i even made sure the font wasn't too exotic ( i think) but still nicer than default...

about your future web page. it looks like calvin.com is taken...

[Howard_Casto]

Check out my homepage.  People might think it's rather goth/emo but in reality all my stuff is dark grey/black with medium grey/blue text because it proves to be the easiest to read regardless of how tired you are.  Links at the bottom.  I can send you a style sheet if you want it.