Ive professionally been designing for screen based medias for 10+ years now and whenever ive done designs in the past, for say a new web site, ive always set the text that i intend to display as HTML type to ‘aliased’ (or ‘non anti-aliased’ to those that wrongly call it this) in Photoshop. This has been so the client (and any other coder/designer picking up this project at a later date) can clearly see a distinction between the use of images and HTML type. I know that presenting a flattened .jpg this way is a massive presumption that the client will have < IE6 since that browser cant render HTML type as anti-alias but it is, for now, still the majority browser… so this is where my problem lies.
I had my boss come to me the other day complaining that the screen shot i had sent him for prior approval (copy errors etc) wasnt ‘the best ever we could visually provide the client’… I was sat there with my anti-aliasing HTML Mac trying to explain the hows and whys of my actions before finding a PC with IE6 to demonstrate my point. I also had to state that his new laptop was running Vista and it anti-aliases the type in IE7 and thats why other websites on his screen looked really nice, compared to the printed out ‘aliased’ HTML type version i had designed in his hand. I also pointed out that the low client expectation level is covered this way, and should the client have IE7 not IE 6 upon its HTML build then it will only look better than what i originally delivered as a flat .jpg screenshot.
hmmm, now i wouldnt mind if he was from an art director/designer background or even from an art background altogether but he isnt, hes my top level boss - a business/marketing man, so not unlike some clients we have here who have no tech knowledge! Annoyingly on a side note, my boss micro manages some jobs by cherry picking which to sit in on and add his ten pence worth, but usually much further down the line from the initial concept meetings that tend to iron out any of my bosses ‘already-designed-and-ready-to-show-client’ thoughts. Grrr - but thats just him i guess.
So anyway, my predicament is: should i start to anti-alias all my HTML example text in photoshop cos of IE7 now anti-aliasing? or stay designing the way i do??
thoughts please 
