Lorem Ipsum for the Video Age
Peter-Paul Koch is a front-end developer based out of Amesterdam; he runs QuirksMode.org and he’s perhaps most well known for his work with JavaScript. (In particular, I’ve been thinking about giving his JavaScript-based image-replacement script a try.)
He also has a mailing list where he sends out short announcements on new scripts and articles that he’s written. And, in his most recent message, he wrote about his completion of a Ubachs Wisbrun site is all in Dutch and, as far as I can tell, they’re an advertising agency. Interestingly enough, they also have some of their commercials posted in their portfolio.
I stumbled into their section for Rabobank and I actually quite liked many of the commercials there. Sure, I didn't understand a word of what they were saying — for the most part — but that allowed me to enjoy them for their composition, diction and tempo.
And, after viewing a few of them, I realized that it reminded me a bit of “Lorem Ipsum”. Lorem Ipsum is a standard set of placeholder text that web & print designers often use in their mockups. By using what's essentially gibberish, designers can can create a design for client review without concerns that the client will nitpick the text itself (and, in the case of a design mockup, the text is only a component within the deisign and not intended for critique).
Obviously, these commercials for Rabobank are not gibberish, but I don’t speak Dutch so I can’t understand a word of it. And, with the narration out of the way, I can concentrate on the on my impressions of the commercial as a whole. All the same, I’m still curious what the heck they’re saying in that one commercial where everyone keeps banging his/her head as he/she is waking up.