Why is it so.....

[Tailstail]

Title invokes your curiosity, it's a trap. Now that you're here let's discuss something.

What is up with all of the dark background/light text profiles on FFR? Yes, you get to design your own profile. But do you think of the people who are going to be reading your profile or looking at it? I know some people do - and they tend to have well designed custom profiles. But the majority of people? Doesn't appear so.

Take a look at this website. The website will explain everything I want to explain on it's own. It doubles as an example.

With that stated:
Grab a large enough image or grab a pattern. Nobody wants to see some, otherwise-awesome, picture repeated 28 times that completely ruins your entire page and makes everything impossible to read. Copy the image, open up Paint. Open up as big of a file as you can use as your background on FFR, and paste your image. Top align it, center align. Do something. Have the background be a pattern or a solid color. Save. Use that.

Notice how it doesn't repeat into infinity and beyond? We thank you for that. It takes under 2 minutes.

After Winter Break I plan to design my own profile. At that point I might open up a "shop" to try and earn me some credits. But for now, I just wanted to get two of the most annoying, headache inducing things on this site the limelight.

If your profile is white text on a black background, like mine used to be.....

CHANGE IT. NOW.

[who_cares973]

thanks for this

[xXAll-ProXx]

lmao this is all because of my profile isn't it? :P

[BethanyBangs]

Interesting. (: Thanks for that link. Now i will never do that again.

[LadyJawz]

OMG I completely agree, I hate seeing something repeat that isn't meant to repeat cascading down a page, it just irks me to death.

on another not I actually did what you said the other day :P
stretched my background and now...well I love it xD

good Idea on the shop thing though!

[LoneW0lf]

My profile is pretty bitchin so I'm good.

[Tailstail]

Originally Posted by xXAll-ProXx

lmao this is all because of my profile isn't it? :P

You pushed me over the edge, but it's been since I got back.

I first joined this site when I was just getting into web/graphic design. So I defaulted to white on black because I thought it looked good. I then left like 2 months after joining the site to go focus on.. well... life. Specifically web design.

I came back with all that I had learned, and I saw my profile. White on black. So I changed it, because everything I have learned is that if I expect anyone to read my profile. I should not be using white on black. Something less contrasting is fine and I didn't want black on white so I went with black on gray. Nothing fancy until I design my profile (sometime after Xmas when I have time)

However with all the people I talk to on the forums, or all those people whom I end up checking their profile out because of the random message or thumbs up... they all tend to be some image repeated into infinity, or white on black.

Now - I know not everyone is into design, hell... some people lack basic color theory and want to slap lime green text with a violet background.... so I thought someone had to be the ass to bring this up.

tl;dr
Yea it was your fault.

[xXAll-ProXx]

I ain't changing it. I like giving people a headache

Actually, White on black is just easy for me to read my comments and everything. a lot more convenient for me, than black on white or a profile with backgrounds. My avatar is black so I'm not going to make my background white. Hell that'd just look awful. I don't like simple white backgrounds with black text either. I do, however, need a good background, something DARK and BLACK.

This is more like an opinionated subject, not everyone is a fan of white on black - I prefer a black background with white text as it goes with my avatar.


EDIT:

Originally Posted by bmah

I thought this topic was concerning people who had white text with white backgrounds, or basically any color text that matches the background so as to make the text invisible unless highlighted.

I don't understand why people do that.

Seriously though! how can white on black give you headache when you have to highlight the text on some profiles because they aren't visible due to the colour of the background and text being the same, THAT is annoying, and definitely unnecessary

[bmah]

I thought this topic was concerning people who had white text with white backgrounds, or basically any color text that matches the background so as to make the text invisible unless highlighted.

I don't understand why people do that.

[Tailstail]

@All Pro
Your profile isn't heavily text based anyways. There isn't much to read. But you reminded me that this topic needed to be made.

I also prefer white on black for personal viewing preference. On most websites where I have a choice on how I personally view the site I go for something nice and dark. Not quite black, but dark.

However when my profile is subject to other peoples' eyes... I tend to lighten it up a bit or even try to be a bit colorful.

I'm also not saying to use white on black. :< Just for anyone who expects people to read their profile (aka: has stuff for people to read) to shy away from white on black. Nobody wants to read that crap.

@bmah
Because they don't want people to read their profile? :P

[xXAll-ProXx]

Originally Posted by Tailstail

@bmah
Because they don't want people to read their profile? :P

No, they know it's readable if it's highlighted, and trust me, there are more people who do this. lol

I don't know. I'd rather have something that suits my liking.

[Tailstail]

I know that, what I'm saying though is it discourages reading the profile. :< I'm not saying they don't know it's readable...

I like to find a balance between "people would read this" and "I think this is badass".

Working with more shades of gray would actually balance out your profile pretty nicely, especially given the many shades of gray in your avatar. =P

[OneHandNow]

My profile is a good example of good usage of repeated images.. take a look. Does it irk you a lot?

[bmah]

If people didn't want their profiles to be read, they would make it private only to those on their friend list, or outright close their profiles. I don't think camouflaging text is supposed to be some deterrent, because there are better ways of having people not read your profile.

[xXAll-ProXx]

Originally Posted by Tailstail

Working with more shades of gray would actually balance out your profile pretty nicely, especially given the many shades of gray in your avatar. =P

Agreed. I'm thinking of adding a header with lighter colours. and get someone to design my profile so it would look more colourful. I get what you are saying though, I'm not a fan of repetitive all black profiles either. My profile was all white/purple before but I like this avatar and white didn't match it so I had to go with black. I'll get it designed soon hopefully.

[Tailstail]

Originally Posted by OneHandNow

My profile is a good example of good usage of repeated images.. take a look. Does it irk you a lot?

It irks me, but not so much as the people who decide they want this (but smaller) for a repeated image:
http://img816.imageshack.us/i/90447587.jpg/

Originally Posted by bmah

If people didn't want their profiles to be read, they would make it private only to those on their friend list, or outright close their profiles. I don't think camouflaging text is supposed to be some deterrent, because there are better ways of having people not read your profile.

Some people don't think of that, trust me. You'd think they would, but many people don't....from the few people I've encountered on other sites and a few on FFR that I asked "Why, it's annoying..." that's the answer they gave me. They don't really care if people read, but it's a deterrent. One such response was "So only people who actually cared what I have to say would read it."

The complete lack of logic that response had confused me. Even if I didn't have to highlight it, I'd only read if I cared what you had to say. :V

But about people who do this, I haven't even seen so many of these profiles to be honest. Only about 4-5.... >_>

[FuzenAkuma]

Lol, in your example my eyes liked the original page before clicking the link that switched the colors.

[Tailstail]

Guessing once you changed the site you felt some eye tension?

Also reading a dark page at night [presuming you're from CA] and switching to a bright one would hurt your eyes regardless. =P

That or you aren't human.