Strict and Transitional...
As Craig will know (and be sick of hearing about) I made my first webpage on Wednesday using only HTML and CSS. No tables or anything. This is the first time I've done this and I'm quite chuffed with myself. The pages even validate as Strict and Transitional XHTML. Some of you may not know what that means but I don't much really either! My CSS also validates as well. The reason I have done it this way is not to show off or anything, but to push myself that little bit further. It's also a goal that I need to follow as well from Back to Basics.
You can view my first page here. It's only the first page so the links point to pages that don't exist. It's a very much 'work-in-progress' at the moment so go easy with the criticism. I would like to know peoples views on the text size of the white text in the menu bar. It looks a bit small when looking at home on my Mac but I would like to know what all you PC users think. Also if anyone has (the dreaded) IE 7 installed, please let me know if it looks OK in that browser.
I was relieved today to find out that there was not a 'task-bomb' waiting to be detonated when we got in. I do look forward to the challege but as Scott said, 'I prefer to have an inkling of what the topic is...' which I totally agree with. Maybe one TB® (task-bomb) is to create a newspaper front page. This is from what Steve said earlier today about remembering what we were being told about the elements. Now I've said that then it probably won't.
The typeography task is something that I am enjoying and it's a part of design that I favour over most. I wouldn't say that I am someone with the patience to create an entire font from scratch though but I do like the idea of creating layouts with just type. I am also grateful to get Neville Brody as my topic for the presentation as he has done quite alot of work in the typeography side of things and it seems that people studying other designers seem to keep coming across Brody in connection with FUSE and so on.
10 comments:
Looks fine in IE7, but I do think that maybe the menu looks a little bit small for me too. Good work so far though, looking very nice.
Mine actually validated as XHTML Strict as well! I share your enthusiasm.
I've got an inkling as well that the first "Task Bomb" might very well be something to do with newspapers, as I picked up on that thing Steve said as well.
Today at The Design Mechanics went well by the way. I'll be posting up my thoughts some time over the next day.
Good to hear Mr. Burgess. Someone else picked up on the newspaper. Hmm. I wonder if anyone else did?
I also think that the text size at the top is too small. For some reason, the fonts look smaller in Dreamweaver than they do in the plan. Maybe it is because the page is scaled down in that, but obviously the point size won’t be any different. This would distort the true scale of the font to the surrounding design.
I think it is something to consider changing. Just make sure you record it in your sketchpad!
Just to assure you, text is too small, especially for links. Also seems scrunched up to the top a bit. In IE7 all the text looks smoother than Firefox for some reason.
It's that TrueType thing Dean. Anti-aliased text.
The line length of the text is too wide. Optimum reading width is within the range 60-80 characters. There's plenty of research that backs this up. Without wanting to be a bore - the BBC do it perfectly. Make it narrower!
I wish to add to the text size debate speaking from the Mac side.You probably know this,I agree that particularly the links in the menu seem quite small both in Firefox and Safari. (Less mouse travel for the user though!)
BTW thanks for the mention! Re "Task Bomb" I must remember to wear my Flak jacket on a Thursday!!
Mac users beware! The most significant difference when web authoring between PC and Mac is the rendering of the font size. Also remember that the user can arbitrarily alter font size by using the Text Size option [Firefox] - so don't get too fond of a precise text layout. In fact, part of your testing should be to see the effect of the aforementioned command, because of it's use by the visually impaired.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will have a bash at this tomorrow and keep uploading the new page so it can be viewed by everyone again.
Designing for both operating systems is becoming a bit of a challenge and I think bringing in my laptop so I can design and test on both would greatly help.
I'd better make the typography tasks worthy of the ® they've been given. It wasn't going to be like that originally - but now I feel I'd be letting you down if you didn't feel well and truly bombed out by them.
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