Simple Logo Swapping
I’ll be the first to admit it. As a Web Professional, it is nearly impossible to account for every user scenario, every browser, every configuration. And yet, if you’re like me, you’re constantly on the look out for ways to improve and simplify your code without sacrificing flexibility or accessibility.
There is a simple but effective logo swapping technique that I utilize on Onehub.com that does both of these things. Before we jump in to the code, let’s examine a few situations that dictate the necessity for logo swapping.
For starters, not everyone accesses your site via modern browsers.
Some users visit sites on mobile phones, PDAs, accessibility devices and the like. Their numbers might not look like much on your monthly stats right now, but you can expect those numbers (particularly mobile phones) to increase dramatically in the next 2-3 years.
Were you thinking of using that awesome, transparent .PNG version of your logo? Well then you can go ahead and add IE6 and all other legacy browsers to that list as well.
These are all potential entry points to your site that should be taken in to consideration.
Second, some people still insist on printing web pages.
Site logos are one the most important visual aspects of any brand. Because of this, they are also a common source of debate among Web Professionals. One of those debates surrounds printed versions of sites.
Some designers believe that a site logo is purely a design element and should not be displayed with the content when printed. Others argue that the logo is a contextual element and therefore needs to be included.
It’s all semantics. Literally. While I can certainly appreciate the validity of both of these opinions in certain contexts, I’ll argue that most clients don’t care. If someone is printing out their site, most site owners want their logo to be at the top of that page.
Assuming you have the same request, you’ll need to place the logo inline with your HTML because the majority of users aren’t sending background images through to their printer.
Last but not least, some times it just looks better.
Sometimes a design calls for placing a light logo on a dark background – because it looks awesome. The reversed Onehub logo at the top of this page is a perfect example. If we served only the reversed logo, users browsing with handheld devices would see this:
Kind of hard to see that light text on a white background, eh? A solid logo swapping technique is especially useful in these cases.
Alright, let’s walk through the technique.
A tale of two images.
We start with two slightly different logos – the standard positive Onehub logo (black text) and the reversed Onehub logo (white text).
Now, let’s take a look at the HTML:
<div id="logo">
<h1><a href="/"><img src="/images/logo_onehub_pos205x54.png" alt="Onehub" width="205" height="54" /></a></h1>
</div>
Nothing fancy. In fact, without any corresponding CSS it is nothing more than a standard image implementation, right? Look closer, you’ll notice that we’re actually calling the positive version of the logo – the version that we want to serve to everything but modern browsers. So how does the reverse logo end up there?
It’s all in the CSS:
#header #logo a {
display: block;
background: transparent url("/images/logo_onehub_rev205x54.png") no-repeat;
width: 205px;
height: 54px;
margin: 36px 0;
}
#header #logo img {
display: block;
width: 0;
}
Focus on the second declaration first. We set the width of the inline image to 0. This hides it from CSS-enabled devices while retaining the alt text for screen readers and users browsing with images off. The display property is only necessary if you’re using a strict doctype for your markup.
Going back to the first declaration. We match the width and height of the containing element to that of the inline image and set the display property to block so that it fills the space we provided. Ignore the margin property as that is strictly for this design.
Lastly, we pull the reversed logo in as the background image of the containing element, essentially swapping it in place for the (now hidden) inline image.
That’s it!
So there you have it. By placing the image inline, we have made the image available to printers and the alt text available to screen readers. Then, with very minimal HTML and CSS, we were able to use whichever logo best fit our design while ensuring that an appropriate alternate version was also served in other situations.