What's your opinion of darker color schemes?

[deronsizemore]

I've seen a lot of darker color schemes and have received a lot of submissions to NiceStylesheet that are darker color schemes. They are starting to grow on me and I'm pretty sure that when I redesign Random Jabber, it will have a darker scheme to it.

what's your take on darker color schemes?

[fatnewt]

As long as they're legible and not -too- intense I like them. I wouldn't follow a general rule that a light scheme is better, but if a dark colour scheme suits your niche then go for it.

[BPartch]

I like them, but as Colin says they still have to be readable. :)

[deronsizemore]

I agree, readable is key. I'm not a big fan of having a black background with white text, but I was thinking more along the lines of a darker gray background with either very light gray text or white text. I'll have to play around with it and see what looks good.

[ses5909]

Someone's I really like is Chrispian's (http://www.chrispian.com/). He makes it work.

[deronsizemore]

Yes, very nice indeed.

Right now I'm thinking about a half light half dark theme. My current logo wouldn't look good on top of a dark background unless I tweaked it a bit, so I'm thinking maybe having a lighter header area and a darker content area.

[davemcnally]

I like them just as much as a light scheme. I think the key is not going over the top with saturation and keeping an eye on legibility and contrast of the text.

[Jessi]

I agree with all of the above. Depending on what the site is, how it's set up, and what the chosen colors are, I think it's totally doable and can look great....as long as it's legible and done well.

[shyflower]

I just changed the background of ShyRhymes for lighter. I looked at it in the "Disable images" of the FireFox Developer Toolbar and found that my text was nearly unreadable.

I like dark sites if they take extra care to make the text easy on the eyes.

[ses5909]

It's interesting, half of the free themes (http://www.theblogexperiment.com/blog-resources/wordpress-themes/) we have for members here are dark, but I think the contrast looks good.

[malique]

dark color schemes = less power usage for the monitor. :P

[mccormicky]

I guess I go for function over style most every time.It is easier on the reader's eye to have dark text on a light background at least for this reader's eyes.
But that doesn't mean I don't love darker color schemes if the site isn't about getting folks to read and is for displaying small bits of info and great images,for stylish and snappy sites without a lot of text content.

[SageMother]

I've seen a lot of darker color schemes and have received a lot of submissions to NiceStylesheet that are darker color schemes. They are starting to grow on me and I'm pretty sure that when I redesign Random Jabber, it will have a darker scheme to it.

what's your take on darker color schemes?
I enjoy the darker color schemes. I also enjoy bold color and high contrast between the typed words and the background. The trend toward blue-gray letters on a white background isn't easier on my eyes at all. It is simply irritating.

[chrispian]

Someone's I really like is Chrispian's (http://www.chrispian.com/). He makes it work.

Hey thanks! It's the first dark design I've done since the '98. I was worried they'd call and want their design back.

I love crisp, white, clean designs, but I wanted to see if I could do a dark one and really started liking it. When it's done right I tend to really like dark designs. They are especially good for "hip, cool, edgy" type sites like bands, movies, etc.

My sites is none of of those things, lol, but I still like the dark colors.

[ChinaMatt]

I chose the black background when I first started blogging because the other color schemes just seemed too bright for my taste. After a while I started adding other colors to it--adding a little red and light blue to some of the text. I also added photos about a year and a half ago to give it more life. If done well, any color scheme can work. It's just a matter of how you use it.

[Evan]

White text on black is particularly annoying.

It can probably look great but I don't think I've seen one that does.

[TVs Worst Adverts]

Dark designs just don't do it for me...

I think it's a bit like the difference between a room with white walls and a room with dark walls, the dark one feels a little claustrophobic to me.

I just love a good bit of nice crisp white space.

[Negativity]

Dark designs are definatly nice, but I've always had the view that they bring the overall mood of your blog down (after all if your writting about your sweetheart the last thing you want is the deathly colours of blood around you!) or whatever!

But as said before, it it suits you... it suits you! I change themes alot, but im stuck with crummy wordpress ones (im pedantic) until I can actually host my own site again!