Where is your content?
April 16th, 2008
One would hope this would go without saying, but as designers we are slapped in the face more often than we would like when clients do not have their content ready from the beginning. The nerve!
What are we mind readers?
There is no possible way, short of pure luck, that one could create a site that would work with any client without first seeing two things:
- Their brand
- Their content
You just can’t do it, effectively. Obliviously, if they do not have a brand, this might open a whole different box of awful, depending on your design skills, but usually can be quite rewarding. Working within a brand can cause some strife, as it will typically set the mood for the entire site.
More important though is the content. The content tells us everything we need to know about the client. Where they have been, where they are going, what is working, and what is not. By obtaining the content first, it allows us to use our best judgment to help the client see which style of layout will work best for them. With the help of some simple thumbnail sketches, gray box comps, or other methods, we can quickly come up with a visual representation of their ideal layout.
If they left it up to us, lord knows what they would get. That is why I would rather have a client that is proactive about their design. There also is a fine line between proactive, and bothersome (some might have other words or phrases to describe them).
I would be awfully cautious of clients without any content for you to work with. Avoid phrases like such:
- Eh, just make it look really nice. I need room for content.
- I need lots of room for that menu to expand
- What is the largest image I can fit? I have some from my digital camera I would like to upload directly…
- Sitemap? Is that something Google offers?
Heck, I would even rather have a link to an SWF and copy all the content myself! Give us something to work with!
Of course none of my clients fall into this category 
Have a story? Let us know.
- Posted at 8:07 pm in css
-
Leave a comment
Clients without content drive me insane.
Its like “Hey, I need you to write my biography”
And you are like “But I don’t even know you”
And they are like “Just make it pop”
hah, make it pop
(new designer)
My first client’s website was started a year ago. Korean lady, tight with her money; site still isn’t finished. She gave me a catalogue to get descriptions and images from. Just revisited her site; still has the Lorem ipsum on one of the pages (was going to finish it herself). She even went as far as to ask me to copy images off her supplier’s website.
I imagine we all have these kind of stories.
lol steve
I had a client give me a business card once, and said to get the logo from there. It had to be no bigger than a dime.
good post
I had a client once who had no content, but had a schedule and information they wanted to put in. I changed the scope of the project to include a complicated CMS for them to use. I went to their site the other day 6 months after the project had finished, and the test images and copy were still up.
Oh well.
[…] read this post about how you need branding and content to design anything web-based. Ifoh Designs comments about […]
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!
This post is funny as well as the fact and this happenes to me a lott :), sorry to say yea its true, my most of the clients are like that, hahahaha and i get a very hard time to do job
i liked these lines very funny
# Eh, just make it look really nice. I need room for content.
# I need lots of room for that menu to expand
Great Post, it just speaks my heart, bravooo