Stop using black for copy text. Just stop. It hurts my eyes. All you contrast freaks, stop telling me that default black (#000) text is a necessity on white backgrounds. It is not, I repeat, it is not. I will stop reading blogs and web sites that insist on defying common sense rules of design, legibility and style. More contrast does not result in de facto better readability.
If you use black (#000) for body text, think again. Think for crying out loud! Change it to #333 right now. Honestly, any value between #666 and #333 is so much better than #000. Oh, and while you’re editing your stylesheet anyway, do Andrei a favour and remove any instance of Trebuchet, especially as copy font. Do I agree with him that Trebuchet must die? No. Do I think it’s not the best font around? Probably. If nothing else I admire his effort to sacrifice for the greater good of Design (yes, that’s spelled with a capital “D”).
But, misrepresenting your own wife. Ouch. Good luck fellow.
On another note I’d like to take the time to congratulate Dan on his wonderful template design for Blogger. Actually, let me just congratulate everyone who worked on the Blogger redesign, especially the folks at Adaptive Path and the talented Douglas Bowman of Stopdesign. Slick job guys! To close off the festivities I’ll point you to Dave Shea’s new corporate home. Sweet stuff, dude!
As it seems, it’s also the day to share a list of people that have influenced one’s design style or thoughts on design. So here we go, in no particular order: Philippe Starck, Rem Koolhaas, Donald Norman, Hillman Curtis, Joshua Davis, Douglas Bowman, Jason Fried, Todd Dominey and Andrei Herasimchuk (yeah, you just made the list, boy). But wait, my list would not be complete without mentioning Dan Rubin, specifically. Actually, I’m sure I forgot to include a bunch of people. Nevermind. Better luck next year. Anyway, I’ll be away for a few days, catch you later.
Stephen