Top all-time · #1794
Ian Storm Taylor
Personal blog · ianstormtaylor.com · on HN as ianstormtaylordesignprogramming
Ian Storm Taylor's personal blog at ianstormtaylor.com covers design and programming. Since 2012, 40 different Hacker News readers have linked it 53 times, most often “Design Tip: Never Use Black”. The last post was in 2013, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 6 of 30 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ian Storm Taylor's 'Design Tip: Never Use Black' for its case against pure black text on web pages, and his OOCSS with Sass post for structuring CSS.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- Said to explain well why not to use black; called really good stuff; recommended for OOCSS and Sass.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 30 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Co-founder of Segment, and ex-RISD Graphic Design. I write about design, programming, and pretty much anything systems related.
Most-linked posts?
- Design Tip: Never Use Black15 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2012-08-08
- Never Use Black (2012)9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2017-06-17
- OOCSS + Sass = The best way to CSS7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2012-10-16
- Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012)3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2016-10-21
- Rendering Views in Backbone.js isn't Always Simple3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-08-01
- What's Wrong with the iOS 7 Icons?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-06-14
- Media Queries are a Hack2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-04-04
- Break Apart Your Backbone.js Render Methods2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-08-28
What Hacker News says?
Another way to make the reading experience much better would be to not use the color black. This article explains pretty well why you should never use this color. http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “I want the world to scroll this way”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black as a story · 761 points
HN discussionFun article to read, and has some interesting ideas! In case anyone else is interested I wrote a similar style of article about refactoring GitHub’s interface a few years ago too: https://ianstormtaylor.com/refactoring-githubs-design/
Comment linking /refactoring-githubs-design/
on “Redesigning GitHub Repository Page”Submitted Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 320 points
HN discussionI am surprised to find this comment so high up when so much of it is so categorically wrong I almost wonder if you're saying opposite things as a joke. Perhaps the most egregious is your position on black shadows being the best and physically most realistic color to blend with, when in reality pure black doesn't exist in nature almost at all, it's just how our brains process things and if you actually use pure black…
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “Designing Beautiful Shadows in CSS”Submitted Refactoring GitHub's Design as a story · 282 points
HN discussionhttps://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “GitHub Dark Mode is too Dark”Submitted Media Queries are a Hack as a story · 223 points
HN discussionhttp://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “Firefox 36.0 released”Submitted What's Wrong with the iOS 7 Icons? as a story · 179 points
HN discussionI recall a blog post by Ian Storm Taylor [0] that suggested it from the perspective of a painter. Not sure how well it applies to screens, but it's definetly not a thoughtless move to use #222 for your fonts. 0: https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black
on “One Way to Improve Your Coding”Submitted Design tip: Never use black (2012) as a story · 173 points
HN discussionFrom my limited exposure to designers, I've learned that they think lower contrast strains reader's eyes less than high contrast does. Black on white is thought to be too striking to read comfortably. Here is a post from 2012 explaining why it's important to use a dark grey instead of a pure black: https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black And I agree. Pure black often looks bad. Light gray is even worse.
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black
on “One Way to Improve Your Coding”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 158 points
HN discussionGreat article and analysis. One answer to your question, "what's wrong with black text on white background?": http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “Predicting Google Product Shutdowns”Submitted OOCSS + Sass = The best way to CSS as a story · 128 points
HN discussionIs there a HN for Designers? I peruse Behance and Dribbble for ideas, but since I'm a programmer and not a designer I really need read discussions and tutorials on Photoshop, Illustrator, design theory, color, etc. I would think that there's enough material. Occasionally, really good stuff like this appears on HN: http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ I'd like a daily dose.
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “A Hacker News For Ideas”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 87 points
HN discussionYeah, he embraced the idea to never use black: http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ EDIT It looks awful in Chrome(Windows) but in Explorer it's OK... http://imgur.com/a/CA7Ow
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “Things I, as a designer, wish more tech startups knew”Submitted Break Apart Your Backbone.js Render Methods as a story · 87 points
HN discussionhttps://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/ #191919 is "real black."
Comment linking /design-tip-never-use-black/
on “How the Web Became Unreadable (2016)”Submitted Rendering Views in Backbone.js isn't Always Simple as a story · 77 points
HN discussionNot sure, although it seems like you didn't read the article. Also you don't disagree with _every_ article of mine because I argued exactly what you are arguing in this comment a couple years back: http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/
Comment linking /skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/
on “What's Wrong with the iOS 7 Icons?”Submitted Walking Through the Design Process as a story · 32 points
HN discussionI've done Backbone course in codechool.com It's very basic and targeted at beginners but in last lessons already I've seen how it becomes tangled and begins to fall apart. I feel that Knockout provides you with much more structure that prevents you from making too much of a mess. Custom bindings provide easy way to insane flexibility http://learn.knockoutjs.com/#/?tutorial=custombindings and the models don't look li…
Comment linking /rendering-views-in-backbonejs-isnt-always-simple/
on “Throne of JS: Eight JavaScript MV* Libraries Compared”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWhat we need are 'Element Queries' - http://ianstormtaylor.com/media-queries-are-a-hack/
Comment linking /media-queries-are-a-hack/
on “Responsive Design is Not About Screen Sizes Any More”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI can see a lot of effort went into interactions and some screens. Then I'm left with the impression they just winged it on the rest [1]. The redesign of the messages app limited itself to removing the graphics. The app still shows messages as bubbles, it's just bland now. I can think on a couple better design solutions for chat threads by looking at other apps and Adium themes. The Newsstand is another example of r…
Comment linking /whats-wrong-with-the-ios-7-icons/
on “iOS 7, thoroughly reviewed”Submitted Design Tip: Never Use Black (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
