Dub Be Good to Me
"Dub Be Good to Me" is a song by British dub group Beats International with singer Lindy Layton on vocals, released on 24 January 1990 by Go!
Design page
The 1990s
The photocopied zine: Impact-style headlines, a serif body that ships with every computer, typewriter captions, and plum, mustard and olive on grey paper.
Colour
Every colour is a token on [data-decade="90s"] in decades.css; nothing in the markup names a hex. The last column is the measured WCAG contrast against the page background (or, for the accent ink, against the accent fill).
| Token | Value | Use | Contrast |
|---|---|---|---|
--bg | #ECE9DF | Page. Photocopy paper, not white | Page background |
--bg-2 | #DBD6C5 | Panels and quote backgrounds | Background; text on it is checked below |
--tx | #151515 | All running text, near black | 15.03:1 on bg |
--tx-2 | #4E4A43 | Secondary text | 7.25:1 on bg |
--primary | #6E1C47 | Links and outline buttons: a flannel-shirt plum | 9.00:1 on bg |
--accent | #C9A227 | Filled button and quote bar: mustard | Fill only; see accent-ink |
--accent-ink | #151515 | Text on the mustard | 7.55:1 on accent |
--decor | #556B2F | Olive, decoration only | Never behind or as text |
--ui | #B5AE9E | Rules and borders | Border, 1px rules |
--ui-strong | #151515 | Form field borders | 15.03:1 on bg |
--focus | #6E1C47 | Focus ring | 9.00:1 on bg |
--danger | #9E1B1B | Errors | 6.58:1 on bg |
Contrast checks run at build time
| Pair | Measured | Needed | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| tx on bg | 15.03:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| tx-2 on bg | 7.25:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| tx on bg-2 | 12.55:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| tx-2 on bg-2 | 6.05:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| primary on bg | 9:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| primary on bg-2 | 7.52:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| accent-ink on accent | 7.55:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| danger on bg | 6.58:1 | 4.5:1 | Pass |
| focus on bg | 9:1 | 3:1 | Pass |
| ui-strong on bg | 15.03:1 | 3:1 | Pass |
Text pairs need 4.5:1 (WCAG 1.4.3). The focus ring and field borders need 3:1 (1.4.11). A failing pair stops the build.
Why these choices
- Display: Anton, a condensed heavy sans in the line of Impact (1965), which the nineties made its own through fanzines, flyers and the first web pages.
- Body: Georgia (1993), the decade's own screen serif, shipped with every operating system since. It is not loaded from anywhere: the page uses the copy already on the reader's machine, as a nineties page would have.
- Utility: Courier Prime, the typewriter face of the cut-and-paste zine and the plain-text email.
- Colour: grunge and Britpop sleeves were muted and worn: plum, mustard, olive, grey. The plum carries links; mustard is a fill with dark text; olive is decoration.
- Shape: square corners, heavy black rules, nothing smoothed; a button is a photocopied block with a hard black shadow that inverts when pressed.
- Television: a grey curved-tube portable with a built-in video, speaker grille down the side, and the green on-screen display and tracking noise of a rented tape.
Type
Display
1990s number ones
--font-display: Anton, Impact, 'Arial Narrow', sans-serif
Body
"Dub Be Good to Me" is a song by British dub group Beats International with singer Lindy Layton on vocals, released on 24 January 1990 by Go!
--font-body: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif
Utility
Captions, labels, code and table headings. Never below 16px.
--font-utility: 'Courier Prime', 'Courier New', Courier, monospace
Scale
- h1Heading one
- h2Heading two
- h3Heading three
- ledeLede paragraph at 1.25rem
- bodyBody text at 1.0625rem, line height 1.6, 68 characters wide
- floorThe smallest text on the page, 1rem (16px)
Decoration
A three-colour line and three shapes. The markup is the same on every page: three spans for the line, three for the shapes. The decade's CSS decides what a line and a shape are here, in its own three tokens (primary, accent, decor).
The line
The shapes
Behind a page's opening, kept to the right and the corners so they never sit under the text.
Television
A song page plays its video on the decade's own set. With a video id the embed sits in the screen; without one the screen carries an ident and a play link.
Components
Buttons
One primary button per group. The outline button is the comparable second action. Each decade shapes them its own way; see "Why these choices".
Links in text
Every link is coloured and underlined, so it reads as a link without colour alone. Only buttons and cards drop the underline. For example, the full listing.
Cards
A grid of equal-weight linked items. Each title is a real heading and the whole card is one link.
Should I Stay or Should I Go
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" is a song by the English punk rock band the Clash from their fifth studio album, Combat Rock, written in 1981 and featuring Mick Jones on lead vocals.
Stay
"Stay" is a song by the UK-based pop act Shakespears Sister, released in January 1992 by London Records as the second single from their second studio album, Hormonally Yours (1992).
Panel
A panel groups content with nothing clickable inside, so it is flat and does not look pressable. "Dub Be Good to Me" is a song by British dub group Beats International with singer Lindy Layton on vocals, released on 24 January 1990 by Go!
Quote
"Should I Stay or Should I Go" is a song by the English punk rock band the Clash from their fifth studio album, Combat Rock, written in 1981 and featuring Mick Jones on lead vocals. It was released in 1982 as a double A-sided single alongside "Straight to Hell", performing modestly on global music charts.
Wikipedia, Should I Stay or Should I Go
Tags
1990 1991 1992 1990s
Disclosure
How the decade is chosen
A song's decade follows from its year and is never stored. 1983 is the 80s; 2007 is the 2000s.
Table
| Year | Single | Artist | Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Dub Be Good to Me | Beats International | 4 |
| 1991 | Should I Stay or Should I Go | The Clash | 2 |
| 1992 | Stay | Shakespears Sister | 8 |
| 1993 | No Limit | 2 Unlimited | 5 |
| 1994 | Without You | Mariah Carey | 4 |
| 1995 | Think Twice | Celine Dion | 7 |
| 1996 | How Deep Is Your Love | Take That | 3 |
| 1997 | Don't Speak | No Doubt | 3 |
| 1998 | Frozen | Madonna | 1 |
| 1999 | When the Going Gets Tough | Boyzone | 2 |
Forms
Labels above fields, hints below labels, what is optional said so, errors in a summary at the top and again by the field. Nothing here submits anywhere.
1990s number ones on 13 March
- 1990Dub Be Good to Me Beats International
- 1991Should I Stay or Should I Go The Clash
- 1992Stay Shakespears Sister
- 1993No Limit 2 Unlimited
- 1994Without You Mariah Carey
- 1995Think Twice Celine Dion
- 1996How Deep Is Your Love Take That
- 1997Don't Speak No Doubt
- 1998Frozen Madonna
- 1999When the Going Gets Tough Boyzone