5 ms·

Not exactly original. And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. If you get away with it, great but some companies like

by pxlpshr 13y ago

Not exactly original. And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. If you get away with it, great but some companies like USAA require all employees and contractors pass drug tests so suggesting the universal stoner hour might not be the best decision. There's a reason designers use lorem ipsum in mockups – it's because once upon a time a designer thought they were clever with their fake text, and an account manager had to deal with a pissed off client because of what it said.

jsmthrowaway 13y ago
> And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. If you get away with it, great but some companies like USAA require all employees and contractors pass drug tests so suggesting the universal stoner hour might not be the best decision. Just to be clear, you're saying that: - The time "4:20" might be offensive to a reader, - I should, for some reason, care about this, - USAA's decision to drug test employees is relevant. Did I misinterpret you there? You're basically advocating for removing the 13th floor from elevators because someone might get scared or have their feelings hurt. Or designing a system that applies a penny discount to subtotals that end up at $6.66, $66.66, and so forth (I have heard of this). 4:20 is just a time. And I'm suspicious of your explanation for Lorem Ipsum's usage, as well, given how long it has existed and how long it has been in use.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > You're basically advocating for removing the 13th floor from elevators because someone might get scared or have their feelings hurt. If you want to use an analogy to suggest that a proposal is obviously wrong, you probably want to avoid your analogy being something that is widely established practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_floor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_floor
  - lugg 13y ago
    That was his point...
  - jsmthrowaway 13y ago
    That's exactly what I meant, actually. I think that practice is stupid.
- pxlpshr 13y ago
  I'm not advocating being politically correct because I enjoy it. My commentary is an alternative perspective based on what I've experienced working at an ad agency (there were many times we pitched extremely offensive ideas), and more specifically working with conservative BANKS. I've had to change the 4:20 timestamp left in Teehan+Lax iOS PSDs countless times before we'd get approval from a bank. I also don't think 4:20 is very original but that's besides the point. Lorem has a long history in design. There are a lot of reasons it's used in prototypes... reduce client distraction, more accurately reflect the flow of text, easy to calculate word-count when working with copywriters, etc...
  - EC1 13y ago
    Haha coming back later to see the responses to my comment is funny. It's a timestamp on internal documents not many people see, it's fine.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  That is a silly argument. The designers are specifically choosing 4:20 exactly because it amuses them to include drug references. Therefore management is entitled to be offended by the drug reference. There is certainly no point in being offended over a random number, but this isn't a randomly chosen number.
  - anonymfus 13y ago
    But before reading responses I though that EC1's comment was about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" reference. So had I would not returned to this thread I could use it with that meaning.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  You're being a but ridiculous, though. You want to have it both ways. How can it be both a joke/funny and totally unreasonable to be offended by it because it is simply a time. Why would a particular time evoke any sort of humor, right? We are all just tobots that dont ascribe any symbolism or cultural experience to abuthing, right? You're just playing coy here.
dokem 13y ago
> And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. Must be rough getting offended twice daily.
- danielsamuels 13y ago
  1pm happens twice a day for you? That's impressive.
tommorris 13y ago
I had a colleague once who set the salutation for the welcome email to the product to "Yo motherfuckers". Basically as a way to guarantee that a copyeditor would rewrite it before it went to users and it wouldn't have copy written by developers. An early beta user got an email calling him a motherfucker. Fortunately, he was good humoured about it.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  Did he learn his lesson? It's things like this, I never put immature things in my code comments or sample texts if it's going to be even remotely connected to a professional setting. In fact, I even do so when it's not. I just have to read back my own code comments from when I was 17, to see that shit isn't actually funny :) :) (obvious exceptions will be made if I have a really good joke, though. sacrifices for art, etc)
tripzilch 12y ago
If some Christian designer would use 3:16 as the time on all their documents and designs, would that also be offensive? Or, some mystical Qabalist (or Jewish) designer could use Gematria to work all kinds of message in numbers into the designs and nobody would even be able to tell! :) Another one, quick question, say you see someone being extremely fond of the number "88" in their designs, on a scale of one to six million, how offended would you be?

by pxlpshr 13y ago

jsmthrowaway 13y ago

> And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. If you get away with it, great but some companies like USAA require all employees and contractors pass drug tests so suggesting the universal stoner hour might not be the best decision. Just to be clear, you're saying that: - The time "4:20" might be offensive to a reader, - I should, for some reason, care about this, - USAA's decision to drug test employees is relevant. Did I misinterpret you there? You're basically advocating for removing the 13th floor from elevators because someone might get scared or have their feelings hurt. Or designing a system that applies a penny discount to subtotals that end up at $6.66, $66.66, and so forth (I have heard of this). 4:20 is just a time. And I'm suspicious of your explanation for Lorem Ipsum's usage, as well, given how long it has existed and how long it has been in use.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> You're basically advocating for removing the 13th floor from elevators because someone might get scared or have their feelings hurt. If you want to use an analogy to suggest that a proposal is obviously wrong, you probably want to avoid your analogy being something that is widely established practice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_floor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_floor
- lugg 13y ago
  That was his point...
- jsmthrowaway 13y ago
  That's exactly what I meant, actually. I think that practice is stupid.
pxlpshr 13y ago
I'm not advocating being politically correct because I enjoy it. My commentary is an alternative perspective based on what I've experienced working at an ad agency (there were many times we pitched extremely offensive ideas), and more specifically working with conservative BANKS. I've had to change the 4:20 timestamp left in Teehan+Lax iOS PSDs countless times before we'd get approval from a bank. I also don't think 4:20 is very original but that's besides the point. Lorem has a long history in design. There are a lot of reasons it's used in prototypes... reduce client distraction, more accurately reflect the flow of text, easy to calculate word-count when working with copywriters, etc...
- EC1 13y ago
  Haha coming back later to see the responses to my comment is funny. It's a timestamp on internal documents not many people see, it's fine.
saalweachter 13y ago
That is a silly argument. The designers are specifically choosing 4:20 exactly because it amuses them to include drug references. Therefore management is entitled to be offended by the drug reference. There is certainly no point in being offended over a random number, but this isn't a randomly chosen number.
- anonymfus 13y ago
  But before reading responses I though that EC1's comment was about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" reference. So had I would not returned to this thread I could use it with that meaning.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
You're being a but ridiculous, though. You want to have it both ways. How can it be both a joke/funny and totally unreasonable to be offended by it because it is simply a time. Why would a particular time evoke any sort of humor, right? We are all just tobots that dont ascribe any symbolism or cultural experience to abuthing, right? You're just playing coy here.

dokem 13y ago

> And depending on who's looking at the material, it could be considered offensive. Must be rough getting offended twice daily.

danielsamuels 13y ago
1pm happens twice a day for you? That's impressive.

tommorris 13y ago

I had a colleague once who set the salutation for the welcome email to the product to "Yo motherfuckers". Basically as a way to guarantee that a copyeditor would rewrite it before it went to users and it wouldn't have copy written by developers. An early beta user got an email calling him a motherfucker. Fortunately, he was good humoured about it.

tripzilch 12y ago
Did he learn his lesson? It's things like this, I never put immature things in my code comments or sample texts if it's going to be even remotely connected to a professional setting. In fact, I even do so when it's not. I just have to read back my own code comments from when I was 17, to see that shit isn't actually funny :) :) (obvious exceptions will be made if I have a really good joke, though. sacrifices for art, etc)

tripzilch 12y ago

If some Christian designer would use 3:16 as the time on all their documents and designs, would that also be offensive? Or, some mystical Qabalist (or Jewish) designer could use Gematria to work all kinds of message in numbers into the designs and nobody would even be able to tell! :) Another one, quick question, say you see someone being extremely fond of the number "88" in their designs, on a scale of one to six million, how offended would you be?