Comic Update: The Return of Bad Taste
October 19, 2009Today’s comic is not reactive, but rather, predictive. As October is the month where Halloween brings its ghouls, ghosts and other monsters to the mind, I can’t help but think about the terrors I’ve seen on the Internet from the days of yore (and sadly yes, even today). Horrible, blighted monstrosities involving the blink and marquee tags, or garish color combinations that unlock portals to the deepest circles of hell.
As someone who is something of a typographic idiot, I can’t help but wonder what foul, plague-ridden beast I might accidentally birth someday while wielding the power of @font-face. And this example at CSS3.Info helps highlight the terrors that text-shadow can bring to the modern era.
I’m not seeking to serve as some sort of doom-saying prophet, but I fear for us all. I’ve seen what high-school students are producing in their “web design” classes (the quotes indicate my sincere lack of confidence). If we don’t shove some taste down their throats, the inheritor to MySpace’s throne of bile-filled ineptness may allow even more control over the pages by amateur authors, allowing some sort of vortex of evil that’ll suck the world’s light away, leaving a black speck in an empty universe.
So, for the love of all humanity, do us all a favor. Remember this motto: Friends don’t let friends use CSS3 without taste.
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Found this yesterday which seems relevant to today’s post: http://geocitieslycostripod.com/
I was amused by this. 4 Amusement Stars out of 5.
And not only that awesome CSS3 fire will be tormenting our souls in the next few years… think of HTML5+canvas+WebGL support for creating native à-la-199X-animated-GIF spinning 3D skulls and construction signs!
It’s like when we first learn photoshop. Everyone makes that ugly, filtered image with at least one lens flair. CSS3 is gonna be like that.
But, then again, people don’t need CSS3 to make ugly sites. They’ve been doing it since the day the web was born. If anything I see this as a boon to our industry. Now it’ll be easier to prove my point when I say to my clients, “You want to go with the 15 year old next door? Cool. Look at our two bodies of work and tell me which is the more sophisticated. You’ll be back.”
ah, but the rainbow gradients will make everything awesome!
I definitely agree with your forecast, but I also agree with Doug S. in that it’s bound to happen no matter what new tools we’ve been given.
Even so, I’ve already begun to see text-shadow abuse, which I assure you will be the worst offender. Friends don’t let friends use text-shadow on body copy!
At least I’m knowledgeable enough to have Firebug installed, and I can turn off these styles whenever it’s appropriate. I just feel bad for all the parents, aunts, and friends who have to view Joe Teenager’s latest aberration—er, CREATION—in its full, unfiltered glory.
I think those that are really good at designing will limit themselves to what CSS3 tricks they need. There will be those that use more since they don’t have to bother with Photoshop to get these “sweet” effects.
I think this may be more of a chance for people on more of the design end to help those with the code talent. Someone with a good eye for layout, color and type can help give input to those that code more.
I think we may need to have the Web Standards Project redo their warning labels they came out with a few years back (especially the marquee tag one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/g9g/2379543180/in/pool-wasp-april-fools/).
I agree with you all that bad taste doesn’t require fancy new tools to occur. I admit, though, that I’m terrified of what will be allowed to occur with these tools.
My fear is that my own bad taste will be revealed at last thanks to these fun little toys. >_>
Hey! I got used to clicking on the little nut-eating thingy, and nearly failed the CAPTCHA.
@Jeff, thanks for the link, That’s superb… but it doesn’t have little flies that follow the mouse around (having just installed a widget that does nothing but put flies on my screen, I am enjoying the theme a little too much…)
Alex Danilo, a normally intelligent person, demonstrated an SVG font which had video running inside the letters a few years ago. My only thought was “oh dear. Someone will see that it is possible, which is fine. But someone else will actually *use* it”.
Still, as I tell students a lot. The world has spent millions of dollars (and Euros and Rupees and pesos and all the rest) on things as important to humanity as rounded corners and rollover effects. Spending a little on getting these done with CSS (cheaper, faster, with less processor requirement and less code being shipped around) will free up that money for something really important one day… like phones that can handle fonts which have video inside them…
Here’s how I think of it: there’ll be a massive explosion of construction signs and horrible animation, but they’ll all be made by nostalgic web designers. Andy Clarke already linked to a page full of nothing but ten megabytes of construction images, many of which were animated.
Worse, because these are talented, experienced designers, we’ll get really well-designed tacky pages, and because some will be talented, experienced web developers, we’ll get well-documented pieces and sorted collections. There will be strange barrages of the 90s hitting us all at once, a little at a time; like having buckets of cold water poured on us in lieu of a steady rain.
Cue a Glenn-Beck-ish scene: “I’m sorry…*sob* I just love my internets… *sob* and I fear for it.”
Then there’s the dark pain that simmers below my human facade: I look forward to it. I pray for the strength to resist the lure of my own 90s designs.
At least it there is a higher likelihood that it’s a semantic horrible looking website? You can make sites look that bad right now, they’ll just be all non-semantic and images. And people do it. So, I figure this is at least a step up. There’s no real accounting for bad taste.
The flies thing is a good idea, but that’s a few years later (with the stupid Javascript popups and infinite loops). My colleague (who built that site) is actually looking for a small Ogg file to play when you land up on it.