Colo-what?

Colophon is a word not often heard outside of conversations between typography nerds. But it’s a word worth adding to the web nerd’s vocabulary.

A colophon is a brief description on the inside cover of a book that credits the designer, typographer and printer for their work and identifies the typefaces, papers and printing and binding methods used in the book’s creation. Colophons have been popular since the renaissance and remain common in printed material (most notably in design books, which feature comprehensive colophons, some of them ludicrously detailed).

Website and blog colophons, where they actually exist, are rarely more than a copyright notice and a handful of icons that link to html and css validators at the bottom of each page. Rather than clutter a site with icons that for most users have no meaning, a dedicated colophon page could:

• credit designers, coders, hosts and other contributors (with contact details and links to their websites)
• demonstrate the site’s accessibility and compliance with web standards.
• demonstrate the site’s accessibility and compliance with web standards.
• Give further information regarding copyright and attribution (it may be the case that copyright details are required on all pages, but attribution for icons, photography or other intellectual property may appear on the colophon page).

If colophons were to become standardised features of websites, the design and web communities could more easily share their knowledge, and admirers could more easily contact the designers and coders who produce them.

Examples of Colophons:

• Wittenburg University Library’s colophon
  
• 1976design’s colophon
• Vinny Carpenter’s colophon
• Anti-Pixel’s colophon