That is, for the individual strokes making up the letter.
Likewise.
My own website has a black background, although there is very little text. I mostly use if for showcasing short films and I like to have a dark buffer area around the movie. I’m also kind of fond of the slight glowing effect white text has on a black background. I suppose I’ll eventually redesign my website when I want it to look more professional.
If you don’t want to change your browser settings, here’s some bookmarklets that let you change the background and/or text color on a page (Netscape versions work for Firefox).
CMC fnord!
Just don’t say it TOO many times. I know it’s tempting. It’s gotten to the point where I just glance at my husband when he’s been proved wrong, and he’ll say, “Don’t say it. DON’T SAY IT”, and then he’ll mutter under his breath, while I snicker.
I hope I’m never one to disdain new tech. These things, however, require use of Javascript, which I prefer not to enable unless strictly necessary. I’m a fussy little bastard, ain’t I?
Ars Technica which is an PC enthusiast website has the option of being both black text/white background or white text/dark gray background, look for the icon in the upper right hand corner. I prefer the dark background and don’t think it’s unprofessional, but I do understand why they made it an option, in the workplace it’s easier to be clandestine on the internet if your background it white.
I hate reading websites with white text on a black background. I think it has something to do with my astigmatism.
Oh, and a CURSE on your friend if she uses blue or purple writing on a black background. Sites that do that are near impossible for me to read, and a good way for me to guarantee that I’ll come away from it with a headache.
I don’t mind dark backgrounds on websites. (I hate animated anything on a site but that’s another story).
Anyway, I really don’t like reading text on a pure white background.
Here’s another example similar to garygnu’s demonstration.
The only difference with mine is the second link has a lighter background than the one garygnu posted. (Still, his examples were quite good.)
So, here’s a link (on a free Geocities site I have) with black text on a pure white background: Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
Now compare this to the text (and readability) when the background is changed to light gray:
Depends on the business. Actually, I wish more business webpages went away from “black letters on white background and a blue logo”: when you’re visiting corporate webpages to leave your resume, they all run together after a while.
I’ll take a pass on animations and music, but for example many music groups have black backgrounds and they’re often much better done than corporate webpages (you can actually find the contact information without submitting the page to the fourth degree).
For what it’s worth, there’s a really quick way to switch it for Mac users. Command-option-control-8 switches the display to inverse grayscale and back. For whatever reason there’s an option in the system preferences and it does inverse colors instead.
I find a very pale pink with black text works very well for my erotica site. Easy to read and yet appropriate for the genre.
Frankly, anyone put off by a website with an African-American background is a bigot.
What?
So does she want a web site that she likes for her reasons, or would she prefer a site that attracts and keeps customers and helps her business?
The two thoughts are not mutually exclusive. There are many successful business web site that operate under a light text/dark background. But unless this is a “dark business,” avant garde or a music/artist web site, going against the norm not only will not help, but might even hurt her business.
They’re a bitch to read. If it’s for a business, please, tell her not to do it.
It’s not just you. I will avoid some sites altogether if they’re black background. The text blurrs horribly for me.
Black backgrounds are now forever associated in my mind with my step-daughter’s unbelievably* bad My Space page.
Yeah, that’s just me, but most of the time it really does look kind of high-schoolish.
*Words fail me. It’s just so bad. Horrible.
It’s part of the accessibility options. Some vision impairments do better with high-contrast displays, and the ability to quickly switch back and forth can help those people if they’re having trouble seeing something. I use it to rest my eyes if I’ve been reading standard black on white background sites for a while. Quite a few computer geeks prefer a high contrast environment (yellow or green type on a black background) to reduce eyestrain. Neal Stephenson mentions this in one of his books.
The Apple site and some of their apps seem to be migrating to black or dark grey backgrounds with light type as the standard design. I doubt most people would call their design aesthetic “unprofessional”. In fact, a lot of web designers seem to look favorably on colored backgrounds with light text. You might not personally like it, but it doesn’t seem to denote unprofessional design to the design professionals.