Actually, Ted, I pretty much agree with everything you said (new Redskins coach notwithstanding). That's why my blog is pretty muted.

"Too much of it would make the room look like an explosion in a pepto-bismol factory."

Ted, I almost died laughing when I saw this line. Several years ago I painted my living room. I thought I had a kind of a dusty rose color based on the paint chip. When I came into the room the next morning, the sunlight streaming in the uncurtained windows, my fiest thought was "Oh, s---, it looks like a Pepto-Bismol factory blew up."
(Once I added curtains, furniture, and grey lampshades, it isn't nearly so violently pink, and I have grown to love it, especially since I am so not a girly girl that a pink room surprises all who see it.)

My next blog face lift will be pink, maybe with some lime green and lots of blinking text. ;-)

Painted my daughter's bedroom pink when she was 4. I painted it 3 times before we got a shade we could stand. Pink takes on a very different look when it's on 4 walls vs a 1 inch paint chip.

I agree with your less is more aproach. And I like to think that I have made decent use of blue as well!

That said, I have probably never not read a well written blog because it was ugly. I will click off of good content for two reasons - anything that moves or flashes and anything that makes noise.

I vote for "non-obnoxious." Nothing should blink. Actually, I used to, back in the early days of the web, point out the "hideous site of the week."

Perhaps I should pick that up again. Non blogs, of course.

hln

Never ever ever use blue text on a black background. Possibly the worst combination there is for readability.

Basically, I agree with you. Not that I think that your site (or mine) is the epitome of blog design, just that it's fairly well organised and easy to read.

Acutally, the current incarnation of Madfish Willie's isn't too bad. A bit busy, perhaps. And I don't like having any sort of image behind the text. But otherwise pretty good.

OK, OK, I give in--how does my site measure up to your scrutiny...?

Not that it would change anything, so NYAH! ;-)

--TwoDragons

Pixy: Thank you for your unsolicited compliment.

Mr Jones: Your whole last paragraph is a misstatement... no, it's a downright, bald-faced lie. I was not incensed with your opinions, you are entitled to your your opinion. However, you damned well bet I'm incensed now. I certainly didn't agree with most of your opinions in the post in question. I thought my comments to your post were well thought out and had strong reasoning behind each point that I made. Apparently you thought so as well, or I would not have recieved such a lengthy private response from you. I had really hoped to continue that discussion on a private basis, but you had to put that little punch in at the last paragraph. As far as I am concerned, you are full of shit. I didn't design my blog for your approval. I didn't design it to solicit or listen to your opinions on whether or not you feel it is a successful design. As previously stated, I designed it for my own personal amusement and entertainment, no one else's. I think as much of your opinion as I do of any other "expert" opinion. They all suck and more often than not, they are totally wrong! Please don't feel obligated to visit my unsuccessfully designed site. You surely are not there for the content, as you yourself have pointed out. I certainly won't feel obligated to return here under any circumstance.

That's about all I care to say right now without getting really shitty about it and possibly stepping on someone else's toes.

Next time, keep your friggin opinions to yourself unless you are asked for them!

Denita -

Personally I like your site. The one thing I might change is the background you use with blockquotes... I'd use a simple solid colour instead. It's just that I don't like anything that makes text hard to read, since I spend 12+ hours a day in front of a computer screen.

Willie, apparently you don't 'get' my humor either. Lighten up.

Denita, I like your design. You've got a lot going on, but everything fits together well and nothing distracts and dominates. It's also well defined between the various bits, which makes it easy to read. I hadn't noticed the texture behind the block quotes before, but I think italics are harder to read in general (and that's coming from someone who uses italics entirely too much myself).

Wow. Can I submit just that last sentence fragment in parens to the Bonfire?

Ted - Good point on italics. At home, with a 1600x1200 display and anti-aliased fonts, they work fine. At work, with a 1280x1024 display and non-anti-aliased fonts, they are noticeable harder to read.

Since I was a reasonably successful web developer (in my own niche) before I joined the rank and file of this man's (person's?) Air Force, I wanted to weigh in. Even if I am a freaking week late.

I always tackled design from a usability point of view. If a design was clean, simple and intuitive for the user, then it's likely to be (commercially, statistically, whatever) successful. In my work, that always meant having a good, obvious organization of content and then creating a layout that facilitated finding the information the user wants quickly (studies suggest 2 clicks or less).

Balance that against clutter. For all it's strengths and popularity, the common blog format (IN MY OPINION) is too cluttered. Too many lists of links, random graphics, months of posts make a page hard to digest and and a poorly organized archive system makes it even more likely that content will be missed.

On text styles: I like using italics, but I hardly ever use bold. IMO, the important thing is to be consistent with how you use them (links, movie & book titles, etc) and be consistent with your layout. For instance, on my site, if I bold body copy, it looks the same as my headings.

But the original discussion was about colors, no?

I agree with Pixy about the background/text combo. It's OK for highlight text to be a different color (headings, links, anything you want to call out), but copy text should never be anything but black or white (keeping in mind that white text may not print properly on some printers if the browser isn't set up to transvert the color).

And I totally agree with Ted about using subtle shades for the background. light shades of white and black relieve eye strain and make it more likely that a user will get more than 2 paragraphs into your 3 page rant.

One helpful thing I always did was choose a color family before I ever did any layout. Choose a background color, a text color, and 2 or 3 highlight and lowlight colors to use for textboxes, headings, etc. And then stick to your choices. (Incidentally, that's why I was so stoked when style sheets came into being. That also gives you an idea of how long it's been since I was doing this stuff.)

And a word about obnoxious "toys":
There used to be an IBM commercial where the CEO went to the web department of his company. He had seen a website with an animated flame and he kept saying, "Can we get fire?" as though it was atomic technology. Unless you're running The Hamster Dance, nothing animated. It takes attention away from the real content.

And in the name of all that's Holy, no background music. A page could have a picture of tomorrow's lottery numbers tatooed on Brittney's naked body and a background MIDI would still make me click 'back'.

Thanks for the critique, Pixy and Ted! I'll relay the info along to Hubby and see if he can change the background on the blockquotes. I agree with you 100 percent, I think that Eric did it that way to break up things a bit but perhaps it would just be better to use a very pale shade of grey instead.

--TwoDragons