Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Weirding is Best Viewed at 1024x768

I finally just gave-in.

The Weirding is best viewed at 1024x768 resolution. You should not have your browser set to "Zoom Text Only" or you will experience bleed (text, images, and other elements overlapping). If the text and/or other elements are too hard to view as presented, Zoom the entire page.

To change your monitor's settings to 1024x768 resolution in Windows:
  • Minimize all active windows and get to the Desktop (the first screen you see when your computer starts up)
  • Right-click anywhere and choose Properties or Personalize from the menu (regardless of the name, it should be [close to] the last item in the list)
  • Select Display
  • Slide the bar until you find 1024x768
If your display is anything less (generally 800x600), the page runs off the side of the monitor; if any higher, the text will be too small to read and other presentation problems may arise. I can't help this. I have a specific design in mind for every department, page, and element I include (in addition to the site, itself), and I have to be able to control certain aspects to achieve it; there are just too many variables to include if I don't.

Most websites do not do this because other websites are most concerned with just delivering the content; The Weirding is meant to be an online experience, not just a means for delivery. The content The Weirding delivers loses some of its power and connotation as a mere collection of media and the entire site works cohesively, not just as a presentation or delivery system for the actual content; The Weirding website is the content.

That isn't meant to sound pompous or preposterous: role-playing games, comic books, sequential art, film - these are experiences and part of the experience begins with the presentation. RPG books and supplements themselves help deliver some of the tone, atmosphere, and overall concepts involved and I aim to do that, as well. In fact, as more of the website is unveiled, I will probably offer fontpacks for installation just like we used to.

I am going against a lot of Web-centric doctrines with this design, but you can think of this as online "print" - since I am laying this all out and designing it more or less as it would look, were it a printed product; the Web is the media, print is the medium. I am fully aware that "the Web is not print," but neither is it video nor audio; the Internet is both media and medium (as I keep saying) and a website is at least the presentation of the content it provides. I have to be able to take back control of some elements of design in order to effectively present the content and, in so doing, the website becomes more than merely the host of the content - more than just the means to the end, the website becomes the end itself.

The Weirding is the content - it is the book which holds the pages together, the setting in which the game is played - and it cannot be effective if I cannot take back some of the control webdesigners before me have relinquished. If your browser settings override my design, the website probably won't appear correctly, but because there are something like tens of millions of you and only one of me - and only one Weirding - you're just going to have to make some concessions in this regard.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

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