[Air-l] Web font sizes

[jeremy hunsinger]

a more likely explanation to me for most of the web isn't that the web 
designer is 'print' oriented, but that they are hobbyists and really 
don't understand the full implications of design decisions or they are 
css or html geeks who like to play with the wizbang aspects of 
css/html, on the basis that it will work say 70% of the time.   
however, perhaps in the field of professional web designers there is 
still a print culture.  I seem to recall that actually there was a 
study on this in the late 90's, though that was a different world.
On Jan 30, 2005, at 9:22 AM, elijah wright wrote:

>
>> The reason so many sites use small fonts is mainly because it's 
>> fashionable, and looks prettier than larger fonts. Designers do, in 
>> fact, need to become more aware of how their design works with 
>> various sizes of fonts, and find attractive ways of presenting 
>> information
>
> the thing is, most 'web designers' are ignorant of the fact that 
> design for the web and graphic design for print are very different 
> tasks.
>
> i tend to browse the web at 120% or so, in firefox.  if i see a site 
> where text flows over the top of images, or the layout has serious 
> breakage at 'only' 120%, then my assumption is that the designer is 
> trying to work with the web as if it is a print medium - one where 
> they have control down to a single em, or where they can precisely 
> specify colors (a la Pantone) rather than selecting combinations of 
> the 'web safe colors'.
>
> I should mention, in relation to Denise's mention of IE's font size 
> selection options, that I consider that functionality within IE to be 
> terribly broken and limited.  Other folks are definitely doing it 
> better, making browsers that are more accessible.
>
> --elijah
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jeremy hunsinger
jhuns at vt.edu
www.cddc.vt.edu
jeremy.tmttlt.com
www.tmttlt.com

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