Define Your Colors

Sublime Text, Not So Sublime Colors

Define Your Colors — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:30:13 +0000

Sublime Text is a new text editor for coding. If you use it correctly, you can even fix the foreground and background colors on your website!

The Link: http://www.sublimetext.com/
The Problem: Undefined background and foreground colors across the site.
The Fix: Pop open your new fancy text editor and open the sublime.css file and add color: #000; background-color: #fff; to the body selector. Save the file. Done.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

TinEye.com has a Tin Eye

Define Your Colors — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:28:21 +0000

Again, sites that deal with design, style or color should be held to a higher standard.

The Link: http://tineye.com/.
The Problem: Undefined background color.
The Fix: The good old background-color: #fff addition to the body selector in the base.css file. Considering that there are other colors defined, leaving out the background color is a bad idea.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Newsweek’s Site Needs to Define A Background Color

Define Your Colors — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:04:11 +0000

Newsweek’s site needs a background color defined.

The Link: http://www.newsweek.com/ and all the other pages.
The Problem: Undefined background color.
The Fix: Adding background-color: #fff; to the body selector in the CSS.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Artists Should Learn CSS, Too

Define Your Colors — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:20:41 +0000

If you are a CPA and your site’s colors are undefined, I’m not likely to care. However, if you are an artist or designer or web professional, then you should pay more attention to your site’s design and CSS. I love Neill Cameron’s A-Z of Awesomeness, but the site needs some defined colors.

The Link: http://www.neillcameron.com/ and all the other pages.
The Problem: Undefined background and foreground colors. I’m using my "Joker" color theme these days, to show the lovely purple and green.
The Fix: Getting a little tired of this part, since the fix is almost always the same thing: adding background-color: #fff; color: #000; to the body selector in the CSS. This site is no different.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Salt Lake Tribune Needs Some Colors

Define Your Colors — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:47:55 +0000

I guess all the western sun fried the designer/developer brains at the Salt Lake Tribune.

The Link: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13185543 and all the other pages.
The Problem: Undefined background color, though also missing a foreground color in the comments section.
The Fix: Adding background-color: #fff; color: #000; to the body selector in this file: http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/css/MNGiDefaultStyles.css. Also, to fix the comment, a color: #000 should be added to the cmtComment class.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Spawn.com Should Spawn Some Color

Define Your Colors — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:52:34 +0000

I didn’t realize that Spawn was still around. It’s so 1990s.

The Link: http://www.spawn.com/news/ and most of the secondary pages. The home page is actually fine.
The Problem: Undefined background color, of course.
The Fix: It is getting old, but adding background: #fff to the /news/Styles/NewsStyle.css file will fix it.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Colorsuckr’s Color Sucks

Define Your Colors — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:21:48 +0000

As mentioned in the comments, Colorsuckr has fixed the background color problem. And is a great tool for web designers!

Again, sites that deal with design, style or color should be held to a higher standard.

The Link: http://colorsuckr.com/.
The Problem: Undefined background color (at least for the "Light" theme).
The Fix: The good old background: #fff addition to the /css/styles.css file . I think it is funny that picking the "Dark" theme option does correctly define the background.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Mozilla/Google Homepage

Define Your Colors — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:21:58 +0000

Mozilla was doing so well, until now…

The Link: http://www.google.com/firefox?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official, which happens to be the default Firefox home page, though it seems that Google is responsible for it.
The Problem: Undefined background color.
The Fix: The good old background: #fff addition. And, by the way, isn’t is about time that Google/Mozilla start using a non-tables layout on that page?
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

Here’s Something to Ask Wolfram Alpha

Define Your Colors — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:02:11 +0000

Why doesn’t wolfram.com have a defined background color? Once Wolfram Alpha comes online, perhaps I’ll ask it that question. In the meantime…

The Link: http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/ and most of their other pages.
The Problem: Undefined background color.
The Fix: The background: transparent on the body selector overrides the background color. It should instead be background: #fff
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge

For the record, I do work for a competitor to Wolfram.

Web Designer Help Needs Help

Define Your Colors — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:50:41 +0000

Sometimes, the posts just write themselves. There is one thing worse than designers who don’t define their colors: sites that purpose to help you be a web designer, like today’s offender, Web Designer Help.

The Link: http://www.webdesignerhelp.co.uk/ and all their other pages.
The Problem: Undefined text colors.
The Fix: Adding color: #000; to the body selector in the style.css file.
The Screenshot: Click to Enlarge