I decided to jump before I was pushed.

Dave H

What is the difference between genius and stupidity?

Genius has limits.   - Albert Einstein

I am going to try to explain why discussion is pointles, if I can.... I'm not really qualified even to try.

You ask for examples but they cannot be given. Here's the problem: the condition we are talking about here is suffered (and even that is not the right word) by thousands of people.

It is not to do with eye-sight per se, people with 20/20 vision can have it. It is not to do with colour blindness per se, although it is a form of colour blindness. What happens is reading text of certain colours is made difficult when that text is placed on another colour it does not agree with. It is then that a form of colour blindness occurs. Even though the person can easily and accurately distinguish one colour from another when these colours appear in isolation, put together, or even close together, they merge.

I hope you see what I mean. I accept I have not explained it very well but what I'm trying to say is if I showed you an example you would not see the problem unless you also have the condition, which obviously you don't.

There is a chart/matrix on the net for it somewhere but, for the life of me, I can't find it now and I've been googling like crazy. I know some magazines use this chart (or similar) for exactly this requirement.  I know because an editor of a dog magazine told me.

I'm not into the technicalities of printing, paper, colour combinations etc. etc., however I have just been on this site:-

http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/ishihara.html

and can see all shapes/numbers etc. that I should as a "non colour blind person". Yet I had difficulty with many MM articles.

I wish that someone in the Editorial Staff would answer this question - why do you do it? (is it to appeal to the younger element at the expense of the older variety?).  No other computer magazine (or any other type) that I read does this.

Dave H

What is the difference between genius and stupidity?

Genius has limits.   - Albert Einstein

In my experience, it's far easier to solve things if feedback is forthcoming. Please don't be persuaded that nobody cares about it. It's cynical in the extreme to believe that, and not supported by any evidence.

Certainly the use of complementary colours and colour blindness are well known to most graphic designers. I don't know the designers at MM, but I start with the assumption that they approach their work professionally, and think they do a good job generally, and, like any of us, come up with an occasional howler. Often, I'm sure, they work to tight timescales.

Believe me, graphic design thrives on detailed criticism. It's actually very hard for self-critical designers to rate their own work. Ask most people and they say 'fine' or 'lovely' or 'very nice', which is virtually information free.

I'm sure that if someone pipes up every time text is hard to read, the use of colours and the clarity of text can be improved for later issues.

I'm really not saying any more than Simon has already said, though I lack his tact.

If people can't be bothered to bring concrete examples to the table, they might as well not bother at all, because graphic design is all about small details.

Dave H has his own graphics agenda (my theory is that he was born to be a designer but ended up in a different job by accident, hence his frustration), which shouldn't prevent other readers from contributing to the design of the magazine.    

Just try and imagine all the different parts involved in the making of a page that you probably don't even think about, here's what I found in a single MM article:

• Title text (the colourful text with the sometimes wacky fonts on the background)
• Introduction text (the little introduction that says who wrote the article and what it's about)
• First letter text (the first letter of an article is always bigger)
• Main text (the small font, probably about 8-9pt if I had to guess.
• Header text (the subheadings in the article)
• Caption text (the smaller bold/italic text next to pictures)
• Boxout headings (the headings to the boxouts)
• Quote text (the style of text quotes are in)
• Page number (alright, this one is pretty constant)
• Footer text (the text at the bottom of the page that shows the issue number and the website address)

Now you have to take into account that all these different types of text need to be different, for example if you're skim reading you want to know what each section is about. If it tells you to refer to a boxout, you need to be able to recognise where it is.

Then you also have to make the page interesting, nobody wants to read something that is hard for them, but if it was plain black and white text nobody would want to read that either.

So you've got all these different types of text, you've got a picture for the background that has LOTS of different shades of colours in, how are you going to choose a colour that would look good and readable all over the page?

The answer is: it's damn hard. I sure wouldn't want to be having to do that for every single page of an issue when the lead times are pretty short. I say that given this task the MM team are doing a fantastic job at making the vast majority of issues very readable.

If you want an example of hard to read text then Issue 1002 (1-7 May 2008) at the bottom of page 19, the "Visit us online at" and "Issue 1002" is quite hard to read because some of the colour of Bill's cardigan or whatever it is have made the text very narrow. That's the only example I can think of, but I'm only 17 and I have good vision.

No, not a failed aspiring g/designer, not frustrated, just a guy who years ago worked on both military and civilian aircraft - where colour combinations were vitally important to safety of the a/craft, those in it, those flying it, those underneath it as it was flying and especially to those tasked with the job of servicing same sometimes under adverse lighting and servicing conditions.

I do feel that I might know just a teeny weeny bit about colour combinations.

In all honesty my original post was to bring to attention of the originator that this was not a new issue and my postings were relevant to the time I read MM.

As this is no longer the case, to be frank, I am little concerned whether MM publishes black text on a black b/ground or white on white.

Dave H

What is the difference between genius and stupidity?

Genius has limits.   - Albert Einstein

I don't question your knowledge of the subject, and I never said you'd failed at anything. I still think you have secret yearnings to be a graphic designer. There's no shame in that.

You appear frustrated enough to ignore the fact that these issues have been worked on to the satisfaction of many people, most of the time. This doesn't imply that further improvement is impossible or undesirable, given feedback from readers, which you claim will be ignored, and which 'the powers that be' have openly requested.

In my view, it doesn't help to overstate the problem and then say there's no point trying to fix it anyway. This can only discourage progress. I fear you'll have to accept coloured pages in magazines as a fact of life.

I coloured the text of your quote just to annoy you btw. Be thankful I didn't choose yellow.