Last night the Word's crack quiz team came a creditable joint third in Time Out's London quiz. Highlights included Mark Ellen attempting to work out on a piece of paper how many journeys began and ended at Victoria in an average year and Andrew Collins trying to remember the name of the character who was written out of EastEnders but suffered the indignity of seeing his dog remain.
It took place in a bar at the University of London Union. Glad to see they're doing their bit in the battle against binge drinking. Three pints of Guinness and two of lager cost £11.10 and they were doing shots of Drambuie for a pound. Which is nice.
BTW It's very nice of Clive James to say something flattering about my piece on The Wire though he reckons the white out of black design of this blog makes it hard to read. Normally I'm very careful about this kind of thing but I've never had any trouble dealing with it. Anyone else reaching for the pince-nez?
What's he saying?
ReplyDeleteActually it turns out you're doing your bit to save the planet: some people have calculated the energy that could be saved if Google were to use a black background.
ReplyDeleteBTW is it just me that was puzzled at the disappearance of the "Anthony Minghella has died suddenly" story - at least on the Beeb - as soon as "Arthur C Clarke has not unexpectedly shuffled off aged 90" story broke?
Never had a problem reading it, in fact it unverves me when a blog I read regularly changes the layout. Also he should see some the horrors on Myface twinkling Icons multiple random pictures of babes plastered everywhere songs that play whether you want them to or not. No minima white or black is just fine maybe the "wide" version for us types with fancy lap tops.
ReplyDeleteI think the white-on-black dictum refers to print, where it's very easy for it to come out unreadable, especially on newsprint. It's clear as a bell on a computer screen, unless there's something wrong with your screen. (Anyway, complimented by Clive James - result.)
ReplyDeleteWhite on black is fine and if you don't like it you can always hit Ctrl-A (On a Mac thats probably Alt-A or A and that key that looks like it was drawn on a Spirograph!) and you select the lot and effectively invert the colours.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid to say I typically only really read blogs through Bloglines, so your colour scheme doesn't make a lot of difference to me. It might be worth looking at what proportion of your readers are using RSS feeds before spending too much time on your layout. Maybe.
ReplyDeletePersonally I find it easier to read white on black on-screen as opposed to the other way around. I agree with bltp - all the flashing, moving glittery, floaty icons that some people go for on Munterspace as I like to call it makes me feel all suddenly rather irrational and want to scream and run away.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is Robbie Jackson!
ReplyDeleteIt must be ice to be complimented by the reviewers reviewer. Good work Dave, congratulations. Warm glows all round.
ReplyDelete"nice", I meant.
ReplyDeletewe wuz robbed :-(
ReplyDeleteNo seriously congrats your team. I wish I had come over to say hello to you and Mark but in the words of the legendary Kajagoogoo I was "Too Shy-e-eye, hush, hush I do eye"
Last in the pub quiz & proud of it.
Praise where it's due for the excellent Wire piece, and nope, no problem here with the text/background colour scheme, but what I'd really like to know is...
ReplyDeleteJust how many journeys do begin and end at Victoria then? You can't just leave it dangling like that. Erm, so to speak.
Congratulations on the much-deserved praise, Clive is right about your brevity, and I've been waiting for winter to arrive in NZ to get stuck into The Wire since reading The Word's enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteHowever I am agree with Clive about white-on-black text. It's usually designers, not journalists, who like white-on-black, because so many of them never read.. Like the small point size in the early days of The Word, it makes a fun experience harder than it needs to be. Control A works, though it's an inelegant solution..
Oi, I'm a designer AND I read.
ReplyDeleteThough my editor has just told me to make our captions bigger.
Clive is my hero. You must be well made-up.
ReplyDeleteNice compliment, even if he's wrong about the readability - it's fine. I hope you're watching He Kills Coppers - a fine example of UK crime drama.
ReplyDelete