Why do some people have a different font/colour for all their posts?

[Monatsende]

My former workmate used a forum with a black background and bright green text.

This setting is held responsible for causing eye cancer within less than 2 weeks.


Edit:

[...] it was red text against a blue background.

This one, too...

 

[Luminis]

I actually find this quite 'annoying' to read.

I actually quite like it. I think it's easier on the eyes than the usual white/black contrast. That's one thing I hate about MS Outlook...

That said, to me, the stuff that's least straining on my eyes is actually a dark background with brighter text. The Steam forums are decent, although I'd prefer a bronze/light brown colour for the text.

 

[Submerged]

My former workmate used a forum with a black background and bright green text.

Was he frequenting cracker forums?

 

[W3H5]

I don't think so. I'm reading Cracked now, I didn't know they had black and green forums. I think it was called Something Rotten or a similar name.

Sorry, misread cracker as cracked.

 

[Pupik]

Live it. Love it. Black Verdana.

 

[Minty]

I'm to a point where the only time I don't bother is when I'm on my phone because K have to type the code manually.

And I'm just lazy enough to not type it myself but still click the button that does it for me.

 

[Bigbazz]

I always thought Famine had purple writing due to his love of the Midnight Purple colour on the Skylines in Gran Turismo, as I'm sure you mentioned somewhere before having a bunch of cars in that colour.

 

[Apok]

I'm guessing Famine has a bunch of cars in most of the purple GT5 paint chips.

 

[Lucas]

Mine's done for the opposite reason.

Black-on-white (or vice versa), or close equivalents (black on light grey, as an example) are not naturally easy to read. You read using the very centre of your retinas (the fovea), where there's the highest density of cone cells (about 70/micrometre) and lowest density of rod cells (just about none). Cone cells distinguish colours from one another, rod cells distinguish light and dark (and are much more sensitive to it).

That's not to say colour is automatically easier to read than black - strong, primary colours, particularly bolded and red, are quite the eyestrainer. The fovea does contain lots of yellow pigment though, making blues that little bit more natural than other colours (it's part of a natural phenomenon of lenses called "chromatic aberration" - different colours are focussed on different parts of the retina).

I tend to, on long posts with significant information, debold my text except for headings. That's just for stylistic reasons - it's hard to emphasise headings properly if everything else is emphasised. I don't tend to change the font as that's really only a personal choice of style. I like Calibri and Gill Sans but they don't work well at 12pt. Verdana too - but that's close enough to the forum's native font.


As for how it started... I first got "into" the GT community on GT3Times and that board had a very dark grey background and burgundy text that I found quite difficult to read at times, so I went for a bold cyan (again with the blues!). When I came here I tried to find a nice, soft, easily-perceived colour to stick with the same theme.

At last.




I can die in peace now.

 

[Famine]

I always thought Famine had purple writing due to his love of the Midnight Purple colour on the Skylines in Gran Turismo, as I'm sure you mentioned somewhere before having a bunch of cars in that colour.

I'm guessing Famine has a bunch of cars in most of the purple GT5 paint chips.

Yes, it's the second way - most of my cars in GT5 are painted Matte Purple (racers/grotty tuners for N4), MNP3 (anything presentable) or Viola Dino Metallic (stuff I really like).

GTPindigo came before all others.

 

[Rykon Zero]

I briefly flirted with color and font years ago, and came to the conclusion that it was too much of a hassle to do all the time, and didn't even have any reward because nobody liked it.

So thus.

 

[C_Raccoon23]

It doesn't bother me at all that people do it.

But another forum I used to be apart of had a "store" where you got points the more posts you made and you could spend those points to permanently change the text of your posts to any color without having to deal with tags.

 

[Wiegert]

I only started doing it a year ago because it corresponded with my avatar colour at the time. It still does now to some extent, but lately I've been thinking about dropping the coloured text. Not because I can't be arsed to add it, but I've just grown a little tired of it.

And yet, I still add it to this post.

 

[VRracingfan]

I guess you could ask why someone's got an avatar, too. Or a signature. It's all just a bit of attention-whoring, no?

Come to think of it... Most presentations I've seen at work (or otherwise) are trying to circumvent the rather harsh black/white contrast these days.

I wouldn't say that an avatar is being an attention-whore as we all have them and they make everyone that bit easier to distinguish. Although, I guess it is trying to get attention onto yourself, but in a more acceptable.
Signatures, now they can be ok but an awful lot of the time they really get on my nerves. Not so much on this site but on Codemasters Forum they really do take the p***. People listing all of their driving stats, their achievements, their PC settings, their favourite drivers with lots of flamboyant colours and of course the obligatory Senna quote on racing to win or overtaking. Generally, things that I (and everyone else) don't care about.
I don't have any problem with people putting some information about themselves, their favourite quote like most do on here. However, when people put there autobiography in their 'signature' it really gets on my nerves and is just attention-whoring and narcissism.

 

[AOS-]

however only a select few around here seem to do it to make sure they're distinguished from the rest of the posters.

I do coloured text for this specific reason, but I don't go to the extent of using a different font.

I tend to change it up to match my avatar's primary colour-a personal taste, but I also consider whether or not it's difficult to read.


As for the subject of bolded fonts, sometimes they're harder on the eyes for me, depending on the vividness of the hue.

Small unbolded text isn't difficult for me to read. I like smaller fonts actually. It looks tidier.

 

[Watchman]

 

 

[Driving Park]

Because it's inoffensive, hopefully easy to read and not too drecky.

I like it. Very easy on the eyes. 👍

I only started doing it a year ago because it corresponded with my avatar colour at the time. It still does now to some extent, but lately I've been thinking about dropping the coloured text. Not because I can't be arsed to add it, but I've just grown a little tired of it.

And yet, I still add it to this post.

This one is nice to read as well.

Personally, I might be bothered to post in a different color (I've noticed that people who post in a different color usually also post in bold Verdana in the Famine mold - even though there are a few in this thread that don't) if I felt I was significant enough to the site that people would actually want to read my posts. I also might do it if I wasn't a fan of GTP's default post settings, but as it happens I like them very much so I don't feel the need to change them. Famine's posts are very easy to read though (not to mention always being enjoyable reads anyway).

 

[Carbonox]

I do coloured text for this specific reason, but I don't go to the extent of using a different font.

I tend to change it up to match my avatar's primary colour-a personal taste, but I also consider whether or not it's difficult to read.


As for the subject of bolded fonts, sometimes they're harder on the eyes for me, depending on the vividness of the hue.

Small unbolded text isn't difficult for me to read. I like smaller fonts actually. It looks tidier.

Well now that we think about it, unbolded isn't really that bad - I just automatically assume that with every font, bolding makes it cleaner looking...

As for changing font, well, I'm part of the apparent minority that actually likes Comic Sans and wouldn't mind using it on the forums all the time - I believe Comic Sans users are far less childish than those who are trying to get the font completely banned. Not pointing a finger on any GTP members though, I'm sure they won't join such extreme movements.

 

[Callum B]

I'd probably change my font and colour to this if I could be bothered to change it for every post but I'm lazy. Maybe some form of way to save what font and colour you use (MAJOR HINT!)

 

[Daniel]

You won't find any font colour annoying anymore after visiting Casio's profile page.

 

[David]

You won't find any font colour annoying anymore after visiting Casio's profile page.

And that is why you turn "Show User Customizations" off in your options.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

Well now that we think about it, unbolded isn't really that bad - I just automatically assume that with every font, bolding makes it cleaner looking...

As for changing font, well, I'm part of the apparent minority that actually likes Comic Sans and wouldn't mind using it on the forums all the time - I believe Comic Sans users are far less childish than those who are trying to get the font completely banned. Not pointing a finger on any GTP members though, I'm sure they won't join such extreme movements.

I'm one of those people who can't stand the use of Comic Sans about 99% of the time, but I wouldn't call for it's banishment. That's just silly, and the man who designed it was just doing his job.

That said, it's a terrible font for readability, and it's tone makes readers less likely to believe the message it is spreading. Which didn't help the Higgs boson announcement's case this year...

 

[photonrider]

................................ Which didn't help the Higgs boson announcement's case this year...

Talking about the God Particle is definitely sans comedy.

As for the colour debate . . . don't forget to degauss ocassionally, okay?

 

[Jordan]

I've been using shades of gray (hah!) for my color of choice for about as long as I can remember, in fact, the earliest that I actually can remember is when AOL was still hugely relevant. Why? Because I tend to find the constant bombardment of black on white drab and too uniform.

I've adapted it here at GTP not very long after I joined (you will find a couple of my first posts in the 'standard' format, same goes for my original account as well) and the rest is history, really. As for the font choice that's just personal taste and not much else.

On this subject, one thing I've been meaning to tell you: Franklin Gothic isn't installed in OS X computers by default, so your posts instead show up in gray-on-gray, bolded Times New Roman for most users on Apple devices (around 22% of all visitors) and can be difficult to read.

That warning goes for everyone who uses another font; just because you can see the font on your computer does not mean that it will appear the same to everyone else and I would advise against it if you want to ensure your posts are readable every everyone.

 

[AOS-]

"Readable very everyone"

The only time I'd hate to see Comic Sans is anywhere but chat and forums. I grew up using comic sans on MSN. It makes any post come off extremely casual and that to me is perfectly acceptable for forum use.

 

[Pupik]

Comic Sans loosely translates to "not funny". Not much else to say about the matter...