Real Estate Website Design – White text on black background

Q: Is it OK to use light text on a dark background (reverse type) for my real estate website and marketing materitals?

My short answer: Never use reverse type in something you want people to read and understand.  Only use it when you want to highlight certain points or accent elements.

The Long Asnwer

I talked to David Daniels from flyerstoyou.com about real estate agent branding / marketing and the reverse text topic came up.  I’ve had a similar conversation with lots of people and I generally come down on the same side every time.  Website design (the graphic design or  pretty part) should enhance or highlight the functionality of your website without getting in the way or taking anything away from the content.

I prefer simplistic design using a lot of white space and black or dark gray text – with the occasional splash of color to highlight or separate elements.  Take Google for example, the search results page is beautifully plain – no fancy graphics or other distractions.

Every Marketing Piece You Produce Should Be Remarkable

According to marketing geek Seth Godin, we should look at the word “remarkable” literally.  Plain and simply – if something is remarkable, that means it’s worth making a remark about.

I like to teach agents how to produce remarkable content.

On the flip side, the branding or appearance of a real estate agent’s marketing materials can also be remarkable.  Take a look at David’s samples and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  Remarkable right?

David makes real estate agents look like a million bucks while making their marketing materials remarkable.  Remember though, what works in print doesn’t always work on websites and vice versa.

Here’s The Trick

We can learn a thing or two from how beautifully David creates branding materials for real estate agents.

We can also learn a thing or two from professional copywriters like Clayton Makepiece, Drayton Bird and David Ogilvy.

The ultimate combination on the web is to create a remarkable experience by combining remarkable content with remarkable graphics.

We generally like to break our website layout into chunks – the header at the top, the footer on the bottom, the content in the middle and the sidebar to the left or right.

Our general rule of thumb is that the content section (the part we want people to read) should always have easy to read dark text on a light background.  We can drastically improve overall look and feel of a real estate website  by adding remarkable graphic design to the header and footer.

A Reading Comprehension Study

I grabbed this from the word nerds where they mention a reading comprehension study:

Ogilvy’s and Bly’s opinions on reverse type are supported by research. Colin Wheildon, editor of an Australian motoring magazine, tested the assertion that reverse type is difficult to read and lowers comprehension. He published his findings in Type & Layout: how typography and design can get your message across – or get in the way.

Here are Wheildon’s results that show how much reverse type can lower comprehension.

Comprehension  (percentage of readers)

Text printed black on white

• Good – 70
• Fair – 19
• Poor – 11

Text printed white on black

• Good – 0
• Fair – 12
• Poor – 88

Text printed white on purple

• Good – 2
• Fair – 16
• Poor – 82

Text printed white on royal blue

• Good – 0
• Fair – 4
• Poor – 96