Coding Horror: The Eternal Lorem Ipsum.
I’ve got a struggling love-hate relationship with Lorem Ipsum. I think it serves it’s purpose of ignoring the actual copy in favor of focusing on the design really well. Unfortunately in 90% of my experiences clients don’t get it. Nine times out of ten we’re sitting there responding to “why is the content in Latin?” even though we’ve presented a comp explaining that the copy is for place only, to show what real copy will look like.
Kevin and I have discovered that it makes a ton more sense to take the extra five minutes and come up with something applicable. If we’re going to end up talking about the copy anyway, it may as well be the copy they have already that needs to be reworked, it can serve as a reminder. Of course the trouble comes in when you’re in a situation where no copy exists at all. I’ve noticed that Kevin prepends something to the effect of “Real copy to be written and put here” followed by a spat of Lorem Ipsum. That tends to help quite a bit.