Design of xkcd.com

The four segments on xkcd.com

The design of xkcd.com includes four white segments. These segments are separated by a thin black border and a light blue-gray background color. Here is a list of the changes that have been made:

The design has changed many times but mainly in the beginning. This was the first time that a design close to the current was used. 126: Red Spiders Cometh was up at the time.

• 2006-02-07 This was how the web site looked after Randall had closed down for LiveJournal releases the week before on January 30th, 2006 (with the release of 56: The Cure). The link is to the first copy on the web archive after that happened, and it was saved the day after 60: Super Bowl was released.
• 2006-01-09 This was how the web sited looked three days after the second comic, 46: Secrets, was released simultaneously on both LiveJournal and xkcd. The page was saved on the 9th of January 2006, before that day's comic (47: Counter-Red Spiders) had been released. Randall had taken a long break from xkcd since and had just begun posting again on both sites from January 4th, 2006, with 45: Schrodinger. The 41 comics released earlier throughout 2005 was at that time all included on the xkcd page as if they had been inserted on New Years Day (2006-01-01). Thus disregarding that, they had almost only been released using the still going Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule from September 30th 2005, with the first being 7: Girl sleeping and the last being 39: Bowl released on December 5th 2005. Thus, he took 30 days without a release from there and had released. And as would be clear he also disregarded the order as the first is now 1: Barrel - Part 1 (which was though released the same day as the Girl, but still only as number 3), and the last number of those 41 comics is now 44: Love, which thus also shows that three other comics have been inserted among the first 44 to make the first xkcd release number 45.

Links

For more information, visit the main article.

The first segment is at the top left of the page, and it contains links to navigate around on xkcd.com and his social accounts. There have been multiple changes to the links over the course of the site's history, with the last one being made in 2023. It states:

Archive

What If?

About

Feed•Email

TW•FB•IG

-Books-

What If? 2

WI?•TE•HT

Header

The second segment is the header, which contains the logo, the tagline, and the header text. The header is wider than the first segment but has the same height. The xkcd logo is positioned on the upper left corner and serves as a clickable link to the front page.

Tagline

For more information, visit the main article.

Next to the logo is the tagline, a short text that appears regardless of which comic is being viewed. There have been eight taglines displayed over the course of the site's history, with the current one being added in 2006. It states:

A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Header text

For more information, visit the main article.

The header text is updated whenever Randall has news to share. After the novelty of the news ends, the page usually goes back to its default header text, which states:

xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Comic

This is the main segment where the comics are. On the front page, the newest comic will always be displayed. This is therefore changing, typically three times a week, but these changes are not considered a change to the front-page design. This segment is as broad as the two above together and as broad as the one below it has a rectangular shape most of the time but shapes itself after the height of the comic. So, it can be very short like here 1123: The Universal Label and very long for instances like here with 1732: Earth Temperature Timeline.

• This is where the comics are displayed.
  • Above the comic is the title, in large bold letters.
    • As always Randall uses a small caps font. By copying text to another program without preserving the font format, it shows both capital and lowercase characters.
  • Below the title and above the main comic image there is a row of buttons. These are fairly standard:
    • The two outermost "to the limit" arrows, |< or >|, take the user to either the very first or the most recent comic.
    • Next to those are the < Previous and the Next > buttons, taking the user to the two adjacent comics to the one currently displayed.
    • In the middle is the Random button comic which chooses a random comic.
      • If the user is on the main page, the two rightwards-pointing buttons will not do anything as there are no newer comics than the one displayed already.
      • Similarly, explicitly visiting the first or latest comics removes the utility of the respective directional choices.
  • These buttons are repeated below the comic. For smaller comics this is not so relevant, but for taller comics this ensures the buttons are at hand both before and after any scrolling down that may have heen required.
  • Finally, beneath the second row of bottoms there are two links.
    • The first is a permalink to the current comic displayed on the page.
    • Permalink is also used in some of xkcd's interactive comics see the permalink section on 1350: Lorenz.
    • The link is just the xkcd server address with the number of the comic. So, for the comic 1791: Telescopes: Refractor vs Reflector, the link would just be:
      • https://www.xkcd.com/1791/
    • The other link is:
      • The image URL (for hotlinking/embedding):
      • http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/telescopes_refractor_vs_reflector.png
    • Here the link is also on xkcd, but indicates that it is stored within a comics-specific logical subdirectory of the server, with individual filenames often in line with the comic title (though there are exceptions, especially where title clashes occur or the visible comic is actually a dynamic/composite rendering) plus the extension for the image-type, which is often .png but may be .gif or otherwise in some instances.

Bottom segment

Footer comics

For more information, visit the main article.

The footer comics are likely selected for representing the topics covered on xkcd. There have been five changes to the footer comics over the course of the site's history, with the last one being added in 2019. They are:

150: Grownups | 730: Circuit Diagram | 162: Angular Momentum | 688: Self-Description | 556: Alternative Energy Revolution

1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

Feeds

Below the footer comics, there are three feeds links. These links consist of a RSS feed, an Atom feed, and, starting from February 6, 2019, a subscription link for receiving news via email. On June 11, 2019, the last two links were also added to the links at the top for easier access. They are:

RSS Feed - Atom Feed - Email

Comics I enjoy

Beneath the two feeds there is a list of Randall's favorite webcomics with links:

Comics I enjoy:

Three Word Phrase

SMBC,

Dinosaur Comics,

Oglaf (nsfw),

A Softer World,

Buttersafe,

Perry Bible Fellowship,

Questionable Content,

Buttercup Festival,

Homestuck,

Junior Scientist Power Hour

Other things

• Beneath the web comic links is another section of external writings.
• Since 2019-02-26 there have been three links under the text "Other things:"
  • Tips on technology and government
  • Climate FAQ
  • Katharine Hayhoe
    • The two bottom links replaced the two original links from when this section began.
• On 2017-07-15 a third link was added to the two original:
  • Women Also Know Stuff
  • Tech Solidarity
  • Tips on technology and government
    • The two original links was removed in favor of two other links after 2019-02-25.
    • The new link then moved to the top.
• On 2017-03-21 this section became part of xkcd with two links:
  • Women Also Know Stuff
  • Tech Solidarity
    • There where only two links until 2017-07-14. The day after a third link was added.
• Up until 2017-03-20 this section was not a part of the xkcd design.

Warning

For more information, visit the main article.

The warning on xkcd was originally added to the site in 2006, but it was removed in 2016. It stated:

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Footnote

For more information, visit the main article.

The footnote on xkcd is written in a very tiny font, which makes it very hard to read without zooming in. There have been two major footnotes displayed over the course of the site's history, with the current one being added in 2016. It states:

xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS

at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device

from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing.

Other things

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: We need to research what these are, why they're here, and their history. Use the web archive: https://web.archive.org If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

Other things:

Tips on technology and government,

Climate FAQ, Katharine Hayhoe

License and copyright

Randall allows people to use his comics for free as long as they do not make money on them and as long as they credit him with the work. There are two notes:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). More details.

"More details" is a link to xkcd.com/license.html, which expands on what people are and are not allowed to do. It states:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

This means that you are free to copy and reuse any of my drawings (noncommercially) as long as you tell people where they're from.

That is, you don't need my permission to post these pictures on your website (and hotlinking with <img> is fine); just include a link back to this page. Or you can make Livejournal icons from them, but -- if possible -- put xkcd.com in the comment field. You can use them freely (with some kind of link) in not-for-profit publications, and I'm also okay with people reprinting occasional comics (with clear attribution) in publications like books, blogs, newsletters, and presentations. If you're not sure whether your use is noncommercial, feel free to email me and ask (if you're not sure, it's probably okay).