One of us says that it should be possible to create a fantastic design...and apply it to a site, regardless of the content. This includes the general page layout/structure, position of various elements etc.
All you have to do then is include the "copy" to make the site whole.
It is "possible," and frankly this is how most sites come into being. I have noticed this as the dominant trend in site design and call it
content irrelevant design. Really it is the idea of site structure applied to site planning: separation of style from structure, content from layout, and everything from everything else.
You can now construct a site without a programmer, designer or client collaborating in any meaningful way, each confined to their own "cubical." Dilbertesque.
The design crux is looking at the result from content irrelevant design.
A business consultancy has a Flash header using the word and theme of balance. Yet not one word in the body copy relates what the business does to the idea presented in the header. What could have happened was copy would take up the theme, explaining what in business is out of balance and how what the business consultants do restores a crucial balance, and what positive benefits come from this. They could have talked about, for one example, balanced scorecards -- a well-known management tool.
The site never made mention of balance outside the header compartment. Perfect separation of everything from everything else. This turned what could have woven a common thread of meaning -- A.K.A.
Branding -- to a superficial
gimmick. This is how Flash becomes 99% bad, trivial, eyecandy. Another site uses a stock photograph of a tree on a grassy plain. Beautiful, but pointless.
I would not call this separation, I'd call it a
schism. Then, so each element can't clash, each is made into generic, vague, lego-blocks ...colorful but toylike in its shallowness.
Okay, fine. What's the alternative?
Jewelboxing. Graphics and copy refer to each other and explain each other.
Essentially what you're talking about is the most shallow kind of brochureware site. Programming is no different, as I've seen lots of four-page PHP/MySQL site with 500 words total and which will never see a fifth page. While this is commonly done by programmers to advertise their skill, such a site should automatically disqualify the programmer from ever rising higher than code monkey.
This also explains the truly huge number of sites built without any purpose except to have a site:
Exhibit number one. That's who agrees with this philosophy. Liberated from the need to know what they want to accomplish, every direction is the right one.
When content is irrelevant, you can put generic boilerplate into a standard layout with stock photography of people who look good, but don't have anything to do with you or your business, and you're done.
One trivial point is the designer, the programmer, and even the copywriter can be replaced with automation. A layout generator, a random stock photography database, and scraper software can replace the design team, and despite protestations to the contrary get the same basic end result.
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