5 Type Tweaking Tricks for a Sunday Afternoon

Filed Under Basics, Design, Successful Blog | 10 Comments

Tweaking IS Fun, Type Is Meant to Be Read

It’s Sunday. The five minutes of Chicago spring is over. A young blogger’s fancy turns to thoughts of baseball and tweaking a blog. The easiest thing to touch and change in a template is the font size and style. Change a number and whoosh! we’ve got a new look. It’s so easy, that sometimes we do it without attention to how all of those changes work when we put them together.

Our readers live with the result. Sometimes it’s fabulous, sometimes not so much.

5 Type Tweaking Tricks for a Sunday Afternoon

Tweaking type is art of the highest form . . . um . . . or to say it another way, the look of our blog can need some serious tweaking. If we put it together without giving attention to the big picture, or if it’s time to freshen things up to get back in fashion, a few tricks, some perspective will do wonders to move us to a clean, readable, and magnetic result.

Choosing fonts and tweaking them is a form of expression. Taking the time to do it right, previewing as we go is critical, but so is knowing the basics of how people interact with type. Here are some tricks to give special attention to the type fonts on a blogs.

Look out for too many typefaces and type fonts Try to keep to two type families please — three at the most. With a range of sizes, that should be enough to meet all of your type needs. More than that and eyes don’t know where to go or how to focus. Designers know that it’s less distracting to keep the number low — simple is elegant.

In like manner, stick to 3 colors for your type and design. It’s hard enough to find 3 colors that go together well. Colors are more distracting than type fonts. Use a color generator tool to get a palette that defines colors that are made from the same base. If you have a photo in your header some color palette generators will actually pull colors right from it. This will help you avoid colors — red is one, bright blue is another — that can vibrate on dark backgrounds which can motion sickness to occur — seriously.

When working with type, be as makthematical as you can. Make your h1, h2, h3, and h4 (if you use them) heads scale down in equal mathematical increments. The naked eye might be able to tell the difference between 1% em or 1 pixel, but a tension will occur that makes your blog feel slightly out of whack when people look at it.

Define your type area to a readable width. A type area so wide I need to drive to read across and then need to drive back to continue on will wear out my eyes in no time. The width should get narrow as the type gets smaller, so that readers can find their way back to the next line.

Keep your type in blocks. When you lean back and look at your overall blog, your type should hold together in bigger type blocks. For example, the post title, post and all of the after matter should hang as one item, despite the fact that they are many different parts. Adjust the space between the parts until the entire post looks to be a single unit. That will help readers actually see your blog in the way you have written it.

If you spend time today tweaking the type on your blog, these are five points to be vigilant about. Blogs with these problems slow us down as readers. When the reading is slow, we perceive it as work. Soon enough we move on to something that seems more fun.

Great type is like the shine on your shoes. It adds appeal and takes your brand up a notch. It’s a quiet way to let readers know that you care a whole lot about their experience.

–ME :Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Tags: Basics, blog-tweaks, Design, fonts, type

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Above the Fold: 11 Things Right about Escape from Cubicle Nation

Filed Under Design, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

Great Design Doesn’t Shout

From the eyes of a naive, intelligent customer, Escape from Cubicle Nation is not just great content. It’s also reader-supporting design done well. Let me point out 11 Things so elegantly right above the fold.

The title says what the blog is about.
The tag line makes the promise even clearer.
I can see who the writer is.
The About Page and Contact information are right there.
Any free offers are easy to find.
The main content is what draws my eye.
The content is supported by a fabulous photo that draws me in.
The title and typeface are readable and all parts of the post are identifiable.
Everything is where I expect it to be.
All of the pieces that go together seem to hang as one unit.
It’s easy to see how to subscribe by email, RSS, or even podcast.

If you’re looking for a model of clean, reader-friendly design, follow the 11 Things that Escape from Cubicle Nation does well. All that and what you notice is the great content. Exactly how a great design works — great design doesn’t shout.

Click the image below to go there.

What else do you see?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Tags: Above-the-Fold, Design, Escape-from-Cubicle-Nation

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Reluctant Readers: Content Is King, But . . . I’m Too Tired to Read

Filed Under Content, Design, Successful Blog | 8 Comments

What This Is Not: This is NOT a design critique. It doesn’t take into account, the elegance, usability, great content, SEO, or revenue values of the fabulous blog discussed here: Read/WriteWeb, which is one of my favorite reads.

What This Is: It’s an exercise in point of view, how readers look at things. It also only addresses one value — how folks read. I choose a great blog to illustrate that even the greatest blog can challenge the patience of a tired, reluctant reader.

We’re All Reluctant Readers

In literacy education, there’s a euphemism, RELUCTANT READERS. That term is meant to name adults and children who come to print after having failed at learning to read. They come with specific needs. It’s hard to catch and keep their attention. Most educators use the term to identify folks who read below the level of the average population.

I use the term more literally. I think, at times we’re all reluctant readers — no matter how strong our skills are. Any time we have to read when we’re out of steam, we become reluctant readers — even if it’s our favorite topic. Then there are the times when we just aren’t interested. we’re definitely reluctant readers at those times too.

If you question that you’re ever been a reluctant reader, try this — pick up a legal document you don’t care about, and dig in for entertainment. . . . Bet you’ll wish for some pictures and some subheads.

Serving and Being a Reluctant Reader

Last night I was a reluctant reader. I decided to go with it. I looked at pages as an a naive, intelligent customer. My quest was to see when the page made it hard for me to read the content. What I found was that the question of supporting reluctant readers is only one value.

Beautiful blogs have many values.

Here’s a page from Read/WriteWeb, a blog I read regularly. This particular page features a post on Web Previews. The screen shots that follow tell the story.

Read/WriteWeb: the page full width.

Read/WriteWeb: same page main text only.

To get the fullest effect, visit the Read/WriteWeb page itself.

Feeds are a moot point in this discussion. Readers can’t see the ads, but they also can’t respond to them. Some questions to consider about folks who see the whole page:

Where does your eye want to spend it’s time?
Would you call this choosing for the reader?
Could design tweaks increase readership, without sacrificing revenues?
Is content king on this page? How would you order the elements by importance as you take the page in visually?

Read/WriteWeb is an excellent blog. with great content, great design, and a loyal readerhip. They’re in a business that is sponsored by advertising. That’s what lead me to realize that accessing the content has to be a partnership between the blog and the reader. Each has a part to make the experience work effectively.

What do you see that supports a reluctant reader? What might you do to draw that reader into the content?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Tags: Content, Design, Read/Write-Web, Reluctant-Readers

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Don’t Design for Comments: Design to Give Readers an Experience

Filed Under Analysis, Customer Think, Design, Great Finds, Successful Blog | 1 Comment

The Right Thought, Not Far Enough

I talked about design and comments in a post Friday. My theory, based on my experience and continuous conversations with readers, was that design has an impact on whether we leave a comment in response to what we read. I was on the right track, but my thinking was just short of where it should have taken me. I should have gone deeper. I also should have left more room for other folks to add their experiences. Details in such conversations are the the nuggets and the takeaways.

We Break Stuff Said It Better

This morning I read an article from We Break Stuff on design.

What We Break Stuff says is crucial and brilliant.

I’m not talking about large type, gradient and rounded-corner design, but the understand user needs, develop meaningful experiences design. I’m talking about the art of tailoring products to the necessities of the user, creating emotional connections and building compelling solutions.

Emotional Connection — I felt that thought, I recognized it when I read it. We Break Stuff had nailed it.

Let’s take a look at how they propose we give readers a complete and compelling experience.
Read more

Tags: blog-promotion, Customer Think, Design, design-experience, start-ups, We-Break-Things

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SOB Business Cafe 10-20-06

Filed Under Great Finds, Successful Blog | 18 Comments

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Brain Based Business wants everyone to know migraine isn’t about stress.

Nektros wants the emperor to wear decent clothes.

Tech Buzz reports on a clever scheme that mashes a click exchange with the 80/20 rule to game the traffic at Digg.

TechZonline didn’t miss a step in getting to know his way around.

Writing, Clear and Simple explains how some reporters only offer half of the information they should.

Shards of Consciousness answers a question as basic as day and night.

Small Dogs Paradise offers sound advice — perfect information for sharing with kids who will be out this Halloween.

Related ala carte selections include

Christine Kane offers 10 ways to stop choosing disaster.

Success CREEations is letting the world know the past doesn’t have to predict the future.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Tags: Brain-Based-Business, Christine-Kane, Content, Design, digg, migraine, Nektros, passive-voice, Shards-of-Consciousness, sleep, Small-Dogs-Paradise, Spike-the-Vote, Stumbleupon, Success-CREEations, Tech-Buzz, Techzonline, Writing-Clear-and-Simple

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5 Type Tweaking Tricks for a Sunday Afternoon

Tweaking IS Fun, Type Is Meant to Be Read

5 Type Tweaking Tricks for a Sunday Afternoon

Above the Fold: 11 Things Right about Escape from Cubicle Nation

Great Design Doesn’t Shout

Reluctant Readers: Content Is King, But . . . I’m Too Tired to Read

We’re All Reluctant Readers