Colors on a website...

[Zacariaz]

I am reconsidering the colors on my new site and think that green on black (Terminal font) would be cool (and geeky), but maybe also very annoying.
So, if you were to use my new site when its finished, how annoying would it be?

If you are unsure how it would look take a look at this: http://www.innergeek.us/

[lukem95]

if done nicely it would look cool... e.g. milw0rm

if done badly it would look uncool... e.g. a freewebs site

[dhpe]

First, let me say hi to all as this is my first post at OSdev Forum (I have been an active reader for a week or so :-)

Now, please don't do it because the contrast will worsen. Your readers' eyes will get tired sooner. For instance, I hate it when a lecturer has a "cool" background pattern in his/her slides with "nice" (read annoying) colors. It simply is more difficult to read, and let us remember, the textual content is the only reason someone is reading anything.

[Zacariaz]

the contrast will worsen. Your readers' eyes will get tired sooner. For instance, I hate it when a lecturer has a "cool" background pattern in his/her slides with "nice" (read annoying) colors. It simply is more difficult to read, and let us remember, the textual content is the only reason someone is reading anything.

It is a good argument, but i will have to disagree. Actually i have my pdf reader set to these exact color when reading large amount of text for an extensive periode of time.

I believe you are right when you say that the contrast worsen, however i do not believe that it will make the contents harder to read.
I do believe that lower contrast will help your eyes to relax, thus enabling you to spend larger amounts of time in front of your computer without getting tired, loss of concentration and similar effects.


Gratulations on your first post.

[Combuster]

There are two things involved
1. One's taste
2. How it's done exactly.

Personally, I don't mind light text on darker backgrounds. I use the mtDark theme here and tend to use dark themes when available, so for me it comes down to 2. If you put pure fluor green on a perfectly black background it would be annoying for the lack of professionalism. If you'd match the colors more evenly I'd be tempted to steal your CSS

(one of my semi-professional dark themes, for inspiration maybe)

[Zacariaz]

Glad im not the only one
Anyway i do have a slight problem with the font. To add a little geekyness i would like to use Terminal however it is just not very scaleable.
So, which standard font, is similar to Terminal but truetype instead?

[Dex]

@Zacariaz, You are going through the same stage as i did, i liked the look of the black background, with green letters, i also want a 010001 background.
You will go through the hacker stage next ( white hat ). http://www.binrev.com/
But if you like it thats all that matters.

As a example take a look at DexOS's first text editor
http://www.dex4u.com/images/DexEdit1.jpg
http://www.dex4u.com/images/DexEdit2.jpg
http://www.dex4u.com/images/DexEdit3.jpg
Defaults to the hacker color scheme

Its very "matrix" http://images.insecure.org/nmap/images/ ... hack_f.jpg

[Alboin]

I hate black. The color is dark, sharp, and rigid. It's harsh on the eyes. IMO, I prefer to avoid using black at all by replacing it with a charcoal color. (eg. Combuster's link)

I also don't like neon for the same reasons. I prefer neutral, light colors with a cool earthy tone. Greens, blue, gray, etc.

Therefore, I should say that neon green on black would greatly annoy me, however, they would not prevent me from using information on your site.

[dhpe]

Dex, gotta admit: that hacker look is neat - especially when combined with your laptop

[Zacariaz]

hehe, nice screenies

Anyway, as im sure i wrote in some other post, this is not just some site that im making for fun, it is something that i intent to put ALOT of work into, and its definently not gonna be done by tomorrow, next week, not even next month...

I fully intent it to be a succes among what i call geeks (and to me thats not a bad word), whether its is people who is interested in programming games, OS's, or any other type of software, or if its down to the electronics level, etc. What matters is that the subject revolves, to some extend, around the subject of computers.

So what im really asking here is how far to take the geek theme?

Personally i dont think it look very proffesional, but then again i was only rated "Major Geek" at innergeek.com

So, if you guys dont think its a good idea (and i actually didnt expect you to) im definently not gonna do it.



@Dex I dont believe im going through stages, but i see what you mean

[Combuster]

So what im really asking here is how far to take the geek theme?

If your audience are indeed computer geeks, consider another aspect of the website: it must be functional for people with a hacker mindset. I.e., no obfuscation of any sort. Also be aware that you should not do anything obvious that is considered stereotypical by non-geeks since it might drive people away instead of attracting them. green text on black background is well passable, but doing it overly obvious is asking for the "noob" label.

Summarized, it should be eye-friendly, well readable, and bandwidth-effective (for lack of a better term). That is what true geeks are about. Its not about fluor screens with terminal fonts showing 1010101s on it.

$.02

[Zacariaz]

So what im really asking here is how far to take the geek theme?

If your audience are indeed computer geeks, consider another aspect of the website: it must be functional for people with a hacker mindset. I.e., no obfuscation of any sort. Also be aware that you should not do anything obvious that is considered stereotypical by non-geeks since it might drive people away instead of attracting them. green text on black background is well passable, but doing it overly obvious is asking for the "noob" label.

Summarized, it should be eye-friendly, well readable, and bandwidth-effective (for lack of a better term). That is what true geeks are about. Its not about fluor screens with terminal fonts showing 1010101s on it.

$.02

I am well aware that for it to be a succes it will have to a work of art and that is the reason it isnt allready up on my server (i have bought my new domain today by the way )

As discussed in another post, im having some trouble getting certain browsers to work probably with the site im working on and i can asure you that nothing remotely useable is gonna be avalible to the public before i have sorted that out... and then theres the other 95% of the work to be done.

[Alboin]

green text on black background is well passable, but doing it overly obvious is asking for the "noob" label.

Summarized, it should be eye-friendly, well readable, and bandwidth-effective (for lack of a better term). That is what true geeks are about. Its not about fluor screens with terminal fonts showing 1010101s on it.

I totally agree. Take my site (Note: Doesn't work for IE.) for example. I have no images, I only use CSS. I really dislike sites tht have dozens of images everywhere, with random colors flying all over the place.

As for the 'geek' theme...I can't really say I'm into it 100%. It's nice and all, but...as Combuster said, it may attribute "noob"-ness in certain contexts.

I should also say a site shouldn't be about the site. It should be about the content. If you have content, you'll have a site. Otherwise, you'll have nothing, regardless of what it looks like.

[Zacariaz]

I should also say a site shouldn't be about the site. It should be about the content. If you have content, you'll have a site. Otherwise, you'll have nothing, regardless of what it looks like.

I couldnt agree more, but still it doens hurt if the theme matches the contents. (as long as you dont take it too far)

Basicly i plan to keep it as simple as possible.

[B.E]

As part of the software development course I just completed recently we had to study color theory. And one of the tools we used to find a good color scheme for the site is Color Wizard

I don't mine the current color scheme you currently have (although It's a little hard to tell what links are {one of the things that well designed web sites have} )