Re: Black Backgrounds
 

Ummm, did it have a black background and blue text or teal background with pink text? The teal/pink was a testing theme I made for a "Change Theme" thing I was writing in the site.

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

It's just like white backgrounds, sure they CAN look bad, but they also look good. It's all how you design and use it. I like using black background with a lighter area for text.

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

Last year our teams site had a black background. The background itself was fine, but the text, which was bright yellow and bright purple was hard on the eyes.

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

We decided against a black background because with the layout we had, it would've made anything light stand out so much. If you look closely at http://www.roboraiders.com the background is red with black dots, making it dark. And in the body... well, it overall hard on the eyes to concentrate on the body text (like http://www.blarglefish.com has).

I would say, unless your words are rather bold or big, stay away from black backgrounds.

Try using blue as a background color and yellow as a border and trim color. I always like trim. :D

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

My team has the same colors yellow and blue, http://www.wolvcatrobotics.com/. i think I've been able to pull it off quite nicely, check it out.

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

Nate is right on the money. The color of your background isn't so important by itself, as it is how well it meshes with the content you plan to display. Sometimes black works, sometimes it doesn't; but, the same can be said for every other color background.

Consider if you wanted to display Hubble photos of nebulae, it would be a crime to have anything other than a black background. The peripheral darkness would make the colorful photos stand out to an even greater degree.

Re: Black Backgrounds
 

There was a study done that stated people only look at a page for half as long, on average, if it has a black bg compared to a white one.