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User Experience

My response: “Lorem Ipsum Fails: Why Real Graphic Designers and Advertisers Use Real Content by Paul Barth”

I feel like real content is the fastest way to get your layout, headlines, fonts, possibly images, red-lined and marked up with unnecessary comments about the content that are irrelevant to the mission critical task of making visual decisions. This article is nice, but misguided. Lorem ipsum requires one conversation with the client about its purpose, not a hundred conversations like, “Oh, we’ve moved this to the Dallas market,” or “Oops, he doesn’t work here anymore.,” or “I think we’re going to nix the British spelling of colour for this piece.” All of the comments may be for another party or stage of production and ultimately influence stakeholder decision to choose the wrong layout based on too much content editing in the mocks.

An otherwise five-minute meeting can easily become a pet-peeve soapbox about dated copy, and when you’re just trying to get a template approved, this is counter productive.

This is a response to: https://generatedesign.com/lorem-ipsum-fails-why-real-graphic-designers-and-advertisers-use-real-content/

Categories
User Experience

The Giff vs. Jiff battle rages on…

This year I realized that the Graphics Interchange Format is likely here to stay.

So how do you pronounce GIF when your friends send you an animated five seconds from Harold and Kumar?

If something is done in a jiffy, it’s done quickly, an advantage of the GIF.

The format creator is on record calling it a jiff.

If you go to the gym and see Jim but do a jig at your gig, then what?

Here’s why I now say Giff.

‘Graphic’ starts with a hard G.

Gin is a great gift. Do you get my gist? The only word in the English language that starts with G-I-F is gift, with a hard G. No jiffed with a J.

Last, if you take all logical spellings of the term, you get GIF, GIFF, JIF, and JIFF. Mathematically, if you pronounce G-I-F with a soft G or J sound, there’s literally no way to spell the hard G version and at least four ways to spell jiff.

So what do you think? How did you read the name when you started the article, and then when you finished.

GIF?

Next week: J-pedge.

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Portfolio

UTD Research Redesign 2010

UT Dallas Office of Research Homepage Redesign 2010

Design, Photography and Copy.