pinterest

Alex Jones

I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).

Design

Drop the Lorem Ipsum – Have fun with Placeholder Text

“Lorem ipsum dolor…”

If you’re a design, build wireframes or prototypes, odds are good that you are all too familiar with the de facto standard for placeholder text. It works, especially if you want to ensure that people don’t focus their attention on the text itself. But it quickly gets old.

Sometimes you just need to shake things up and add some personality to your work, and there are some great resources for interesting text that serves the same purpose – it fills up the space, but isn’t the least bit related to the purpose of the page itself.

Here are a couple of my favorite resources for alternatives to Lorem ipsum:

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913

As noted in the site’s description, this is a searchable collection “detailing the lives of non-elite people…containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court.” Here’s one of my favorites, from the case of John Harris, tried for Seditious Words on September 8th, 1714:

John Harris , was indicted for speaking scandalous Words relating to her late Majesty, viz. God d – n the Queen, she may kiss my A – se . The Evidence was a Constable, who swore, That the Prisoner came raving and swearing along the Street late at Night; and among others, us’d the Words in the Indictment; whereupon he thought it his Duty to secure him. It appear’d upon his Trial, that he was somewhat Lunatick, and had been under Cure for the same; whereupon he was acquitted.

And another case from May 10th, 1676:

Three women of Stepney were indicted (one as principal the other two as accessaries) for stealing Hemp enough to make Halters for all the Rogues in Christendome, that is to say, no less than four thousand weight in one Indictment, and three thousand in another. It being suggested that they had got a Key to a Rope-makers Warehouse, whence at several times they purloyned those vast quantities. But no direct proof appearing, they were all acquitted

Movie Descriptions and Commentary

The worse the description the better. A bit of time on IMDB or Amazon can net you some jewels (typos, poor grammar and all), such as these:

C.H.U.D. 2 – Bud the Chud

From IMDB comes this plot summary:

A couple of teenagers break into a secret government science lab and steal a frozen corpse for a high school prank and accidently awaken the corpes which turns out to be a CHUD, ironically named Bud, who goes on a killing spree and making his victims also canabalistic CHUD’s and its up to the teens to stop him.

The Brain from Planet Arous

Another one from IMDB:

A powerful criminal brain from the planet Arous, Gor, assumes the body of scientist Steve March. Thru March he begins to control the world by threatening destruction to any country challenging his domination. Another brain, Val, works with Marchs future wife Sally to defeat Gor. Val explains that Gor will be vulnerable when he is forced to leave March at intervals to re-energize. Gors vulnerable spot, the Fissure of Orlando, is described in a note left by Sally in Steve’s lab.

A Scathing Review of “Shadow of God”

And should you need a longer passage, check out this review posted to Amazon. Here’s an excerpt:

And the dialogue. Oh dear, the dialogue.

“That’s probably the fiercest dragon known to man,” Craig tells Todd toward the end. Because, you know, we have so many different kinds of dragons in the world with which to compare.

Okay, so he uses the wrong word and his characters are morons. You can overlook a misused word here and LOTS of writers are horrible with characters. Hell, I’m guilty of this myself. But sometimes he just
plain gets his facts WRONG:

“The stranger was beastly in size with thick, bushy eyebrows, a prominent protruding forehead, and a thick, black coarse beard. His gait was that of a mammal–a Neanderthal.”

I know I never went to college, but um . . . do you think Rayburn knows HUMAN BEINGS are mammals as well?

And later we learn that Cain and Abel were Neanderthals who lived in the stone age, feared dinosaurs, and that Cain was kicked out of the Garden of Eden for slaying his brother. Dude, Cain and Abel weren’t born until a LONG time after Adam and Eve–the only two people who ever lived in the Garden of Eden–were kicked out.

Other Sources

Do you have any interesting sources for good placeholder text? Please leave a comment below.

This Ain't Right: Fight the Orphan Works Act

Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out the dangerous Orphan Works Acts making their way through Congress. This act has far-reaching implications for everyone, but the impact is even larger for those who work or publish on the ‘Net. Ultimately Congress is attempting to reduce your rights as a creator (whether you write, draw, design Web sites or sing), by allowing the infringer to make the distinction as to whether or not they tried hard enough to find the owner of the work and reducing the rights of the artist, designer or author.

As noted by Mr. Zeldman, so called “orphaned” content “will be made legally available for use by commercial interests, even when the copyright holder is alive, in business, and licensing the work.”

That strikes the very heart of our society. You work hard to create something, you have every right to maintain ownership and be compensated for that work. If someone steals from you, you have recourse.

It’s Easy to Fight this Law

Luckily there is an easy way to contact our representatives in Congress to educate them on the dangers of this law and to inform them that we expect each and every one to oppose the bad legislation: Go to the Legislative Action Center tell them where you live (so they can match you with your representatives) and choose a letter that you want to send – click and go.

Here’s a snippet of the letter I sent to Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison and Representative Lloyd Doggett:

I am told that the Copyright Office conducted a study of Orphan Works and that these bills are based on that study. I understand that an orphan work is a work whose owner can’t be located. I am alive, working and managing my copyrights. I can be located. My clients locate me all the time. But that does not mean that anyone anywhere can find me. And frankly, why should the failure of any one person to find me be the measure of whether or not I can be found?

What if 10 people can find me but one can’t? Why should that one person get a free pass to use my work? Won’t that give infringers an incentive not to find me? And why should I be obligated to go into court to prove anything about the diligence of the searcher or the value of my work? What if the same work is found an orphan in one legal proceeding and not in another?

Join the list of groups opposing this bill, spend three minutes to protect the basic rights of those who create what you enjoy.

Non-linear Scheduling

Muji Chronotebook Non-linear Day Planner
Photo from the Muji Web site

LifeHacker points to the yet-to-be-released Muji Chronotebook Non-linear Day Planner, which provides an interesting way to plan your day. Gone are the normal grids and standard sequence of hours and dates. They have been replaced by pages that display “time on an axis, like an analog clock.” One page is dedicated to the morning and the other to the evening. So you add your events to the AM or PM page, writing your “plans like spokes on a bicycle wheel.”

I don’t think it would work for me (I’m not a heavy user of day planners anyway), but I really love that they are forging a different solution to the problem of planning one’s schedule.

Spec Work, Pixish, Design Contests and Unicorns

Adam Howell sums up my thoughts on Pixish quite succinctly. Sure, the concept sounds great at first, as noted on the Pixish site, the community is set up as “a way to engage creative people online to submit, judge, and source amazing images.” Nice until you dig into it, just a little bit, and realize that a set of designers are all working on the same project, only one of whom will get paid. Even worse, “paid” may be a prize that is worth far less than they should have been paid.

Choices

Now, there’s a part of me that believes that it’s up to individual designers to decide to participate in something for which they may not be paid. But, in this case, as has been noted many times over, spec work weakens the profession, promoting the inexpensive option over a quality piece. Clients will view the talent pool as relatively equal, opting for a crap shoot instead of finding the right match for their needs. We do have an obligation to keep our industry strong.

For Those Starting Out

Some believe that this is a great opportunity for budding designers to build a portfolio, but as Adam notes, “We’ve got, you know, the web. Blogs. Youtube. digg/reddit/lots of other lowercase social sites. There are no longer just three ways to showcase your talent — there are three bajillion. And if you aren’t getting noticed, sorry, you either aren’t trying hard enough or you suck.”

Harsh? Yes.

True? You bet’cha.

So, do design contests have any real value? I think so. Competitions oriented towards students and amateurs to help them fill out a portfolio are great, as are contests that may benefit a non-profit, as long as the results of the contests isn’t used as a business deliverable, much less as a part of branding. That a disservice to the client who deserves nothing but the best representation of their brand and services; and it’s a disservice to the designer who should be properly compensated for their efforts.

Value

In this same vein of respect for the designer and the clients, I had a conversation recently with someone who had worked in marketing at a large tech company and was not willing to pay a designer the going rate (actually the lower end of the spectrum) for a Web project. This potential client told me that were he to interview someone who designed a site like Apple.com, he would automatically consider them out of his league. So, even though he respected and acknowledged their skills, he wouldn’t try to find a way to harness those skills, that designer would be set aside because they were too good. Anyone who wasn’t at that tier were then lumped together, as they couldn’t impress him, which means that they were charging too much.

He’s chasing a unicorn: quality and experience on the cheap.

Oh, and this is for a project that he is passionate about, and will represent him to the world. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy, but what does this say about the image he will project?

What does it say about the designers and clients using Pixish?

Quick Note

Derek Powazek has given a lot to the Web community, and I have benefited from his work in the past, so while I have a lot of respect for him, that respect doesn’t change the fact that I disagree with the concept of Pixish.

Slanty Design in the Real World and on the Web

Architectures of Control, which provides some very interesting analysis of products that are “designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave” in order to encourage the user to follow certain practices and behaviors, has posted Slanty design, which is a great introduction to the concept and bridges design in the physical world and design for the Web. It’s a quick, well illustrated article that I encourage everyone, not just designers to read.

For non-designers, it may shed some light as to why some of yoru favorite products and services act as they do.