simple rules for good typography

[Gare]

Hi Jon—

I don’t know why I skipped over a passage in your original post, but I must apologize: for body text, it’s folly to try reversing it out and maintaining legibility (so the potential customer can read it). For both human and Production reasons, you just can’t cast 12pt. Times in white against a dark background and read the thing, or maintain the serifs that make the font what it is (because of the trapping, or if no trapping, the bleed). Headline text, yeah. Body copy=nope.

I’d like to keep Frances’ thread open to non-advertising people, too (), so I submit that 10pt. and up sans serif text, white against a dark background on web pages is readable, whether it’s a blog or an advertisement. Sans serif fonts can be read more quickly onscreen than serifs (studies support this), and if everyone ran a black website with light or white text, we’re reduce power consumption to a significant extent, lighting up far fewer areas on users’ screens.

My Best,

Gary