June 4, 2001

We'll start with the headline. . .

AUTHORITY (?) SPEAKS
It must just be in the air, or maybe it has to do with Mercury going retrograde (I've learned to hate that). You see, I borrowed a book on Web site building from a friend who had taken a course on the subject.Yes, I already know how to build Web sites. But I just had to see what a textbook written by a couple of people at Yale University would have to say that I didn't know already. If they're right, I'm in big trouble, because the first thing I turned to was a section on how one was supposed to handle text and headlines.

According to these folks, most of what you see on this page is wrong. Headlines and subheading in all-caps are supposedly "monotonous" and hard to read. So I should really use something like this, yes?

Um, well no, actually. It turns out that capitalizing the first letter of every word, or almost every word, makes your eye jump up and down too much. No, this is the recommended procedure:

Oh wait a minute, that's not right either! The authors of the particular book I read say to use sans serif fonts for headlines. You know, Geneva, Helvetica, Arial, etc. So let's see (this and all the others above are <FONT SIZE="+3">:

Well, that is kinda cool, I have to admit. Nice and bold. Hmm. Maybe the next GRACK! will have a different look. The thing is, I've always liked the somewhat klutzy, old-fashioned look of a handprinted newsprint broadside (just picture some good old Revolutionary War rabble-rouser pulling a damp poster off the press, holding it up to the light and exclaiming, "THAT'LL get 'em all stirred up..."). Don't want to be too cool, now. Which brings us to another authority, this one my very own brother!

DEEP IN THE HEAT O' TEXAS
Little joke, there, hahaha. Brother Bob lives in beautiful Austin, home to the finest university in the entire world and many thousands of carpetbaggers who have no idea of what the place was once like . . . I lived there during the Wonder Years ('64-'68, '71-'75) of the Vulcan Gas Company and Armadillo World Headquarters (long may they live in the hearts and minds of all who were lucky enough to experience them). My sister Teresa also lives in the glorious capitol of the Great State of Texas and has been a professional artist for over 30 years.

Anyway, BobRob is a graphics whiz and desktop publishing authority (who also runs a Web site or two) and frequently tells me what I need to know and don't follow up on. I respect his vast knowledge, even if I'm too stupid or lazy to act on it. Fortunately he hasn't stopped trying to get me to mend my ways and I hope he never does! Anyhow, about a month ago he finally spoke up about the graphic I use at the top of this page:

"I don't know why I never commented before but Your Grack byline would look much better if you would start over and save it as a GIF instead of a JPEG. Save it as a GIF with about 32 colors or less. It would also be a smaller file. As it is, it's got all those JPG artifacts around the letters making it look muddy and dirty."

 Mortally offended, I replied:

"I trust you, all right, but I don't see anything *wrong* with it. :-) What's 'muddy and dirty'? Which letters are you talking about? Maybe your monitor sucks, hahaha. I like the way it looks. :-("

I said he was a pro, right? So what did he do but fix it and send it to me (below):

 

 I've let this sit and simmer for a while, but I have to admit the lad is right: yes, that looks better. And here's his explanations:

"Your JPEG is 20 K. By now you've seen the 7 K gif I provided. Note there's now pure white surrounding the letters and everything is sharper. Your JPEG had muddy colored off-white splotches (JPEG artifacts - the downside of JPEG compression) where I'm sure it was intended to be white. Since the graphic is NOT photographic in nature, a GIF is the way to go rather than JPEG."

Let this be a lesson to us all. And I faithfully promise that NEXT WEEK, I'll run the above graphic in place of my "muddy" one. Although. . .although I kinda like the paint-spattered "muddly" look of the JPEG artifacts. . .("THAT'll get 'em all stirred up!"). . .but a quick back-and-forth scroll tells me his version has more

Might need to goose that red, though. I like reds that melt your corneas. And in case you're wondering, my brother cranked out the modified GRACK! byline graphic with FireWorks.

CREATIVE ANARCHY vs. FROZEN 'PERFECTION'
Being a lifelong resister of prescribed "this is the way to do it" proclamations, I've appreciated the relative freedom enjoyed by everyone here at Applelinks. We do have to use a template with the requisite header, sidebar, and footer includes, but that's only sensible. There has to be an Applelinks "look." But for whatever reasons, there has never been a mandated Applelinks style: everyone who writes for the site has always been free to use any font or headline configuration he wants.This may change at any given moment -- especially after the boss reads this! -- but for now, that's the way it is. Each columnist provides his own graphic as well (we don't really have a staff designer). This could also change at any given moment, since publisher & webmaster Joe Ryan is responsible for overall site design, and he could always take it into his head to enforce an Applelinks aesthetic.

At any rate, I'll try some new stuff next week, starting with BobRob's graphic and some new formatting. Time to change the sound file, too. It's one thing to resist being told what to do, and another thing entirely when resisting for its own sake becomes stale orthodoxy. SHAKE IT UP, I say, and so we will. I also have it on good authority that things will change on more than just this page in the near future.

Hang in there...

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr says welcomes your comments, but don't forget that you can always raise a ruckus at the Applelinks MacBoards. And say, there's a new (May 29) FARR SITE at the ZOOZONE, which always features a daily image from the Land of Enchantment.

AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.