Back in August 2009 I made a vow never to use Lorem Ipsum again!
Partly because I could recite more words of Lorem Ipsum than I could numbers of Pi, but mainly because I noticed it encouraged bad design habits and impeded feedback and discussion in client meetings.
I don’t agree with some of my thoughts from 2009, but this reasoning still stands:
The problem with using Lorem Ipsum is that it doesn’t give a proper sense or provoke thoughts as to what will eventually replace it.
So has a year sober of Lorem Ipsum been beneficial?
I can say unequivocally that designing websites without Lorem Ipsum has improved my website design massively. Here’s three reasons why:
- Design looks more professional and bespoke. You’re probably charging the client a lot more than the cost of a stock template, so don’t make it look like one.
- It forces you to acquire a deeper understanding of the client’s business. To design their website you should be able to quickly write sample headlines, navigation, and micro-copy specific to them (not necessarily good copy – but relevant copy). Not only does this help you nail the design, but is also impresses the client and ensures their confidence in you.
- Considering words is important. Sometimes they will be long and if the final content doesn’t fit into your design – that’s your fault. There are always reasonable limitations to content length. With a design that considers this from the start the boundaries will be understood and worked around by both designer and client.
These benefits are invaluable to a successful project. Any misunderstanding of the brief and client are caught early. It’s perfectly fine to clear things up in the first design meeting, it’s not so good when the website is being built and populated.
I still use Lorem Ipsum from time to time. It’s useful for showing large paragraph designs like a blog post (where writing the whole thing would be silly). I just make a point of testing the design through extremes of short and long content.
Do you design with Lorem Ipsum? Leave a comment! Let me know your experience.
9 Comments
Aslam Najeebdeen
Yes, David! You are absolutely correct.
It’s always best to type the real sentences for the headings as we can play and improve the typography of the whole page. Some fonts may look good for letters in the “Lorem Ipsum” and sometime they may completely don’t give a good look for the actual headings.
As you mentioned, I always use real words for headings and I use “Lorem Ipsum” time to time to illustrate the long paragraph.
Nice article! Looking forward more from you.
Bram Devries
When I’m working on a project I like to understand what it is all about. There is one statement that has stayed with me:
“Content is king”
I have no idea where it is is from but it is quite clear.
Ben Goodman
You’re both correct yes, I liked your point David about typography, headings are a must to maintain the design imo.
Great article! :)
Jonathan Ogden
I don’t think Lorem Ipsum is such a huge problem really. I agree it shouldn’t be used everywhere, and for big headlines on the home page that say what the website is, it should probably be some meaningful text. But when I’m mocking up a layout for an article page, I’m not going to write out an entire article. Like you say, it would be silly to write out a whole blog post. I think this is what Lorem Ipsum is for anyway: large amounts of placeholder text. Any other text that has some importance should indeed use meaningful words. So, yes, I do use Lorem Ipsum, but only for long paragraphs of generic text.
Bill Kalpakoglou
Interesting article, David, but I’m not sure if I agree or not. I appreciate the thinking that writing copy would get the designer more “in tune” with his/her client but wouldn’t the time spent writing copy be better served with actual designing? Or perhaps exploring the ever-changing web technologies that could improve the client’s site? In the end, the client will probably delete your copy and insert their own, so why waste that time coming up with it? I don’t think word length is valid enough. Also, I wonder if on the flip side, with clients that waffle on getting their content ready you put yourself in the position of having to provide free copy-writing because now the client expects it of you.
Adam
I absolutely agree with you. 1) When you’re designing without Lorem ipsum you will avoid questions like “What does the text mean?” 2) It’s much clearer what will be the area about
Mike
Definitely thought-provoking. It honestly confuses a lot of my clients when they see it., I’d much rather fill it with applicable content as you suggest but it could be dangerous in the sense that maybe you (or the client) would forget to change or update the copy later since it looked so convincing. Greening it certainly makes it clear that this is temporary text that needs to be replaced.
Of course PhotoshopDisasters shows that even that doesn’t work all the time haha.
David Bushell
Thanks for the comments everyone!
@Jonathan Ogden – I think you’re right about the correct use of Lorem Ipsum. It shouldn’t be a problem for people who realise how to use it properly. I used to use it for headlines, once even navigation – the horror!
@Bill Kalpakoglou – time management is of course a consideration but I think gaining trust and confidence initially is also very important. Otherwise it’s difficult to reach the point were we can focus on all the awesome, modern techniques to be explored.
Caleb Ogden
This in general is the way I operate as well. I agree with what’s said above, and with Jonothan. One other small point I’ve found in dropping the placeholder text, is that writing sample copy or reviewing some from the client actually sparks new ideas on design and layout changes, and even things like where to add CTAs. Like you said, we charge a hell of a lot more than template designs, don’t disappoint on the copy :-).
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