Content, moreover getting content, is a constant struggle of the web designer. I think you would be hard pressed to find a designer who would say otherwise. However, getting content isn’t enough. It should be good content, well written, well thought out and friendly to its platform.
Over the years, I’ve learned to take greater liberties in copy writing, along side my web designing. It is not an area I particularly want to get into, but I see it as necessarily married to design itself. I make no claim to be expert in the art of writing, but I have some experience and think I can find my way around.
The inclination to become more liberal in my offerings of copywriting, as part of the design process, stemmed from the idea that words, like design, follow a cadence. The thinking is that these inflections should work in tandem together (i.e. Harmony Good. Dissonance Bad.).
In practice, I don’t sell myself as a copywriter, but rather introduce copywriting into my design. There has been a long standing discussion amongst designers, around the use of Loren Ipsum filler, in place of actual content, during the design phase. The school of thinking behind this, is the minimization of distraction in the design review process. Of course, the notion of inaugurating meaningless text into design, as filler, is problematic. For one, written text ushers in the notion of meaning, whether meaningless or meaningful. In the same sense, design ushers in the same notion, even more so when the design is for interactive websites.
So over the years, I’ve been in the practice of reclaiming this part of design, in the form of the written word. The tempo, language and, for lack of a better word, mood of the written content of a website, has a much to do with design and user experience, as does the subtle gradient or drop shadow used to offset a focal point on a page.
There is a lot of writing on the web at present, skirting around this topic, one way or another, but I haven’t seen anyone take this particular stance. Personally, I think the web would benefit greatly, if more designers would don the attire of the copywriter (at least a visor, now and then).
