Simon Butcher

Since I started, the most annoying aspect has been the awful design of the page. While I have not yet started work on a design, a hush-hush project has directed me back to thinking about how to make my blog more readable. I feel the present design lacks adequate rhythm in its typesetting and displeasing contrast levels, let alone the problems when presented on other media.

Recently I talked about how painful web design can be, and since then my rediscovery of CSS tells me that it's probably time to do more than just ruminate. It will probably end as yet another of my infamous unfinished projects, but something will come of it.

While playing with the bleeding-edge CSS3, I stumbled across a presentation by Mark Boulton and Richard Rutter entitled “Web Typography Sucks”. I recommend you check out the slides, because their point is very clearly expressed.

Indeed, their point has been my point, somewhat, for a few years now — pages based primarily on text are oft awfully laid-out. Web designers often go for pretty but forget tried and true typesetting rules still heralded in printed media. To compound matters, people compromise because of perceived limitations of their input device (keyboard, et al). I believe it's perhaps naïve to write «naive», and «sic» should be followed by “sīc”.

Part of this problem may rest with the education of those writing content, but browsers themselves may not be laying out text correctly. All of the browsers I have seen tend to break lines of text within flowing paragraphs at inappropriate locations, in my opinion.

I've made a small effort in my previous posts, but never really bothered to follow proper punctuation. Yes, I've been a lazy blogger, and I'll try harder in the future. In the mean time, I'm going to quietly work on a simple and readable design that will probably take me 10–20 decades to complete!

Maybe I should start ending articles with an end of proof symbol as a magazine would. Maybe something geekier would be appropriate instead. Maybe… ␄