Still readable, yes, but I find the black more readable. Taking webpage design cues from schools of painting is a fine strategy as long as you remember that webpages have a different goal from paintings. This implies that everytime you transfer something from a school of painting to webdesign, you have to ask yourself "Does this principle undermine the purpose of a webpage?"
So generally regarding light gray texts, one more example of "everybody has what I have."
Regarding the article: a lot of painters used black too. Even more printers. Don't you think that the books would be printed with gray or colored ink if that would be more readable? I'm sure enough experiments have shown that it just isn't. The arguments are very suspicious.
The simple answer is #0 black doesn't anti-alias very well and distracts the reader. Almost anything #2 and darker will look the same (for text), especially on cheap PC monitors. #3 range works best for print-like black and #4 will hint of off-print black. #5 is the beginning of "over-designed" fuzziness.
But the most interesting finding was when they tested creative cognition - on that test, the "good typography" participants scored much better than the "bad typography" participants. This might explain why we designers insist on good typography (and other design principles). Creativity is a big part of our job, and we want to avoid things that might impair the performance of our creative cognition. But for people in other, "left-brained" professions, enhancing creativity is less important and engaging people is less important, so it makes sense that they would see design rules as irrelevant extra work of little value.
Designers rush to judgment when they see "bad" design because it almost literally hurts their brain. But, maybe the person who designed it or the audience for it doesn't have that kind of brain - and that's OK.
But for people in other, "left-brained" professions, enhancing creativity is less important and engaging people is less important, so it makes sense that they would see design rules as irrelevant extra work of little value.
If you assume my work requires no creativity, or that I think design rules are irrelevant, then you are mistaken. I don't like design for the sake of design. I do like design that looks good and enhances a things intended purpose.
"Design for design sake" is just another way of saying you don't share the designer goals of engaging an audience and enhancing creative cognition. There's nothing wrong with that, people have different needs, so "good" means something different to a designer than it does to you.
You just compiled your CLI program, and you're testing it's output. You're staring at specialized typefaces and an optimized screen. Creativity involved (you aren't a good programmer if you lack creativity).
The other side: you're a store manager, programmer manager, or X manager, you have to make a fast presentation of your key notes. You start PowerPoint, and select some template. (Creativity Involved?)
"Design for design's sake" is what I call design that interferes with the purpose of what's being designed for. An example would be a chair that is "creatively engaging" but is uncomfortable to sit in.
The thing about the original article is that it's a fascinating peaking into the world of full, creative color theory. But it also seems like if what you get out of the page is "don't use black text", you've literally "learned just enough to be dangerous". It is important to keep in mind that if you're a geek who's going to wade in aesthetic theory, learning enough to