Turn your text and photo into a professional

3 stycznia, 2020

It’s unreal, uncanny, makes you wonder if something is wrong, it seems to seek your attention for all the wrong reasons. That’s what is Lorem Ipsum to many—it rubs them the wrong way, all the way. Usually, we prefer the real thing, wine without sulfur based preservatives, real butter, not margarine, and so has value.

The toppings you may chose for that TV dinner pizza slice when you forgot to shop for foods, the paint you may slap on your face to impress the new boss is your business.

The FCC design study was a huge effort, possible only thanks to a large international collaboration. Over five years and with the strong support of the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 .

Authorities in our business will tell in no uncertain terms that Lorem Ipsum is that huge, huge no no to forswear forever. Not so fast, I’d say, there are some redeeming factors in favor of greeking text, as its use is merely the symptom of a worse problem to take.

You begin with a text, you sculpt information, you chisel away what’s not needed, you come to the point, make things clear, add value, you’re a content person, you like words. Design is no afterthought, far from it, but it comes in a deserved second.

Anyway, you still use Lorem Ipsum and rightly so, as it will always have a place in the web workers toolbox, as things happen, not always the way you like it, not always in the preferred order.

The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle

Even if your less into design and more into content strategy you may find some redeeming value with, wait for it, dummy copy, no less. You made all the required mock ups for commissioned layout, got all the approvals, built a tested code base or had them built, you decided on a content management system, got a license for it or adapted open source software.

Then the question arises: where’s the content? Not there yet? That’s not so bad, there’s dummy copy to the rescue. But worse, what if the fish doesn’t fit in the can, the foot’s to big for the boot? Or to small? To short sentences, to many headings, images too large for the proposed design, or too small, or they fit in but it looks iffy for reasons the folks in the meeting can’t quite tell right now, but they’re unhappy, somehow that’s unhappy for a reason is a problem, a client that’s unhappy though:

Comprehensive questionnaires for your brand, client experience, and website.
Proposed Brand Concept including a main logo, alternate logo(s) and logo mark(s). The final logo & logo elements will be provided in multiple file formats, along with a final ‘Brand Guidelines’ PDF (including font & color palettes).
Four collateral items of your choice (I.E. business cards, thank you cards, social media imagery, letterhead, notecards, labels or stickers, invoice, newsletter, etc.) This can be whatever may be needed for your particular business - as agreed upon by both parties beforehand.
Fully Responsive Website design via WordPress. You will receive a completely custom website designed by me and developed through a 3rd party programmer (provided by me).

* This design package takes approximately 8 weeks to complete and has an investment level starting at $5500. (Price does not include web hosting fees, domain name subscriptions, stock photography, copywriting, or tax). Contact me for a custom quote!

The web design package

Chances are there wasn’t collaboration, communication, and checkpoints, there wasn’t a process agreed upon or specified with the granularity required. It’s content strategy gone awry right from the start not t the root of the problem, it just shows what’s going.

Forswearing the use of Lorem Ipsum wouldn’t have helped, won’t help now. It’s like saying you’re a bad designer, use less bold text, don’t use italics in every other paragraph. True enough, but that’s not all that it takes to get things back on track. There’s lot of hate out there for a text that amounts to little more than garbled words.

If that’s what you think how bout the other way around? How can you evaluate content without design? No typography, no colors, no layout, no styles, all those things that convey the important signals that go beyond the mere textual, hierarchies of information.

People say nothing’s impossible, but I do nothing everyday

Rigid proponents of content strategy may shun the use of dummy copy but then designers might want to ask them to provide style sheets with the copy decks they supply that are in tune with the design direction they require. Or else, an alternative route: set checkpoints, networks, processes, junctions between content and layout.