Up until today I thought being able to use existing concept in a mockup was kind of like winning a contest; having french and english content at the onset of a design is more akin to winning a lottery. It’s much more satisfying to design with real content because it provides a constraint to a design problem; the more that’s known about a problem, the easier it may be to solve. At the very least the solution may be more creative.

Obviously as a designer you’ve got to create a design that is flexible to support varying conditions, particularly if a site is bilingual. At some point seeking to control every scenario that may arise will result in a compromise in design integrity.

With that being said, I learned a very valuable lesson today which completely turns me off of the idea of using real content. It’s a situation where the client becomes so caught up in the content you’ve chosen that it literally skews their entire view of the design.

That was a disconnect I didn’t foresee. Balls.