> Worse, a lot of designers seem to get carried away with this and end up with gray-on-gray text that's impossible to read for anyone over the age of 30.
I have always put this down to designers having very high quality monitors with excellent contrast. Apple screens (laptop or desktop) particularly tend to show those low contrast things as more readable than for the rest of us.
It is a plague that seems to be less bad than it used to be. I think it's ok in principle but it should be quite subtle. Also, I think that full-black should generally be used for text, but you can get away with more on the background (look at HN for example!).
I have always put this down to designers having very high quality monitors with excellent contrast. Apple screens (laptop or desktop) particularly tend to show those low contrast things as more readable than for the rest of us.
It is a plague that seems to be less bad than it used to be. I think it's ok in principle but it should be quite subtle. Also, I think that full-black should generally be used for text, but you can get away with more on the background (look at HN for example!).