Background colour font and "business" blue

'professional' site colour and font

[treetopper]

i've a very popular business site which was designed some 4 years ago it now needs an overhaul. There appears to be a general consensus of opinion that black bg's and comic sans font are definately a 'no-no' and ine uses both! My site makes comedy films for entertainment and fundraising (its not a porn site!)and I feel that it can get away with a black bg provided the content, navigation and graphics quality is good. Plus black bg seems to be the colour of choice for the entertainment business eg see playboy's site etc. So the question is-- should one bow to the apparent consensus of opinion- or should a business with an unconventional product make a stand and be original at the risk of being considered amateur by 'john doe' viewers... any opinion will be gratefully received

[troels nybo nielsen]

"If it ain't broken don't fix it."

Of course there will always be details that could be better, but in your case I would be very reluctant to make dramatic changes on a website that seems to be a succes.

Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

[treetopper]

Thanks troels
Im sure that there's a lot of wisdom in that- its just that I cant help wondering if it might work better with such appearance changes...I shall be updating for higher resolutions, incorporating css, and drop down links through asp pages but as I'm just at the template stage so bg colour and font are high on the agenda.
My feeling is to heed your advice and possibly just substitute the comic sans font whilst keeping the black bg.. anyone else got a view on this . . please let me know..

[balinor]

I design a lot of sites for the Design industry (Architects, Photographers, etc) and I see quite a few black and dark grey backgrounds. When used correctly, it works quite well. The comic sans though, that just HAS to go! Nothing screams amateur hour like Comic Sans!

[limbo]

Treetopper - Welcome to Webmasterworld :)

I was doing some reading on simlar topics recently

Some good Font related threads here:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

Colours and the Net:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

Hope these are of help to you

Ta

Limbo

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Added:
While I reseached this I used Bills search tool [webmasterworld.com]:

Google Search > Colour Usability [google.com]
Google Search > Fonts Usability [google.com]

[treetopper]

Many thanks Balinor and Limbo
My mind is now made up - I shall dump the comic sans and work with another sans serif and keep the black bg-this will also save me a lot of work on the images/graphics etc.

By the way this is a great forum- I love it here and have already spent several hours reading through other interesting topics - its good to know that there is so much diverse expertise and experience close at hand - keep up the good work and thanks- I shall try and make a positive contribution in return.
Treet

[troels nybo nielsen]

I really should have suggested css. Glad that you have found that idea yourself. By having almost all design elements decided by an external css file you make it very easy for yourself to experiment with fonts and colours. Do visit our css forum if you have not done so already.