Lorem Ipsum and placeholder text
History & evolution
The use of Latin-looking placeholder text dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries, when Renaissance printers needed to show type specimens without revealing the content of works in progress.
The mass adoption of Lorem Ipsum in the digital world came in the 1980s, when Aldus Corporation included it in its Aldus PageMaker desktop publishing software. It has since been integrated into virtually every layout and design system: InDesign, Sketch, Figma, WordPress and hundreds of frameworks and web templates.
Today it coexists with modern alternatives such as random real-text generators or famous literary and film quotes, which add a touch of humour or identity to design prototypes.
Best practices
Despite its apparent triviality, the use of placeholder text has important implications for design workflows:
Use Lorem Ipsum only for prototypes and wireframes. Once a design is presented to a client or approved for production, it is strongly recommended to replace Lorem Ipsum with real or representative content. Real text can reveal layout problems that Lorem Ipsum conceals.
Match text length to expected content. A common mistake is using a standard Lorem Ipsum block when the real content will be much shorter or longer. Generate placeholder text of the length the actual content should be.
Avoid Lorem Ipsum in indexable content. If a website goes live with Lorem Ipsum by accident, search engines may index that text, negatively affecting SEO. Ensure no Lorem Ipsum ever reaches the production server.
Use cases
Lorem Ipsum is indispensable in any design phase that requires simulating content. In web design, it allows evaluating typography, spacing and readability without waiting for the client's final content. In editorial layout (magazines, catalogues, reports), it allows the design team to work in parallel with copywriting. In template and theme development, Lorem Ipsum is the standard "demo content" to show how the design looks in real use.
Curiosities
- The Lorem Ipsum in use today is a scrambled excerpt from Cicero's "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written in 45 BC. It roughly translates to "the highest good and evil".
- Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, identified the exact origin of the standard Lorem Ipsum in 1994, ending decades of debate about its provenance.
- There is a Lorem Ipsum variation for every hobby or community: "Bacon Ipsum" (full of cooking terms), "Hipster Ipsum", "Pirate Ipsum" or "Samuel L. Ipsum" (with quotes from his films).
- Lorem Ipsum can reveal biases in AI algorithms. Some natural language processing models trained mainly on English mistakenly identify Lorem Ipsum as Italian or Portuguese.