On January 3rd, Chris Griego posted a very thought provoking article about the need to create a “new standardized dummy text” that goes beyond the general paragraph display of Lorem Ipsum. This was at the beginning of a flurry of conversation at RD2 concerning this idea.

I discussed this idea with Chris in order to see where he was coming from since designers and developers look at the world through different lenses. I wanted to get to the bottom of what brought this idea up in the first place. What I began to realize is that creating a new “dummy text” could be a way to further shrink the wall that separates designers and coders. This new Lorem Ipsum would be a great way to further meld the gap between design and development by giving designers not only rich content including paragraphs, lists, hyperlinks, images, etc., but to take it a step further and also include other standard elements like form elements and even standard sized faux browser windows that help the designer stay within the correct parameters from the beginning. Having every element represented gives us the power at the beginning of a project to define which elements need to be included and styled. Or even whether we have the time within the project parameters to style standard elements like form elements, a specific issue that is often overlooked at the beginning. From there the designer can be sure to include every element and will eliminate guesswork as the project proceeds, increasing project efficiency.

So this Lorem Ipsum 2.0 document will be the skeleton with which to build websites. Every “bone” will be included and then we will simply put the skin on and shape the site into it’s unique form while keeping the elements that support this form in tact… from the beginning. That way we don’t create a figure and forget to add the spleen.

Stay tuned for updates on our progress on this important initiative.